Category: reason

Breaking: Ohio Challenges Constitutionality of American Rescue Plan Act

Yesterday, I noted that 21 State Attorneys General threatened to challenge the American Rescue Plan Act. They alleged that a conditional spending provision was inconsistent with South Dakota v. Dole. Missing from that list was Ohio. Now we know why.

Today, the Ohio Attorney General filed suit against Secretary Yellen and the Treasury Department. The Buckeye State seeks a preliminary injunction.

Here is the introduction:

The Tax Mandate bars States that take money under the Act from using that funding to “directly or indirectly” offset revenue loss from tax reductions. Id. (emphasis added). But since “[m]oney is fungible,” Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, 561 U.S. 1, 37 (2010), any money that a State receives through the Act will necessarily offset, either directly or indirectly, every tax reduc-tion that the State might pursue. The Tax Mandate thus gives the States a choice: they can have either the badly needed federal funds or their sovereign authority to set state tax policy. But they cannot have both. In our current economic crisis, that is no choice at all. It is a metaphorical “gun to the head.” Nat’l Fed’n of Indep. Bus. v. Sebelius (“NFIB”), 567 U.S. 519, 581 (2012) (op. of Roberts, C.J.).

This coercive offer of federal funds violates the Constitution. The Spending Clause empowers Congress to “provide for”—that is, to spend money in support of—the “general Welfare.” Art. I., §8. c.1. But while “Congress has substantial powers to govern the Nation directly, including in areas of intimate concern to the States, the Constitution has never been understood to confer upon Congress the ability to require the States to govern according to Congress’ instructions.” New York v. United States, 505 U.S. 144, 162 (1992). And Congress may not circumvent that limitation by using its spending power to “indirectly coerce[] a State to adopt a federal regulatory system as its own.” NFIB, 567 U.S. at 578 (op. of Roberts, C.J.). That is precisely what the Tax Mandate attempts to do: it seeks to “drive the state legislatures under the whip of economic pressure into the enactment” of Congress’s preferred tax policies. Stew-ard Mach. Co. v. Davis, 301 U.S. 548, 587 (1937).Congress exceeded its constitutional authority when it passed the Tax Man-date. The Court should enjoin the provision’s enforcement, at least in its application to Ohio.

The relief bill would give Ohio about $5.5 billion, which translates to roughly 7.4% of the Ohio’s total expenditures. Definitely in the 10% ballpark referenced in NFIB.

In NFIB, the Court determined that the Medicaid expansion coerced the States because it “threatened” to deny States funding equal to “over 10 percent of” their “overall budget[s]” unless they agreed to expand their Medicaid programs. 567 U.S. at 582. The Act is similarly coercive: Ohio will be denied funding equal to 7.4 percent of its total expenditure in 2020—funding the State badly needs in an economic crisis—unless it agrees to limits on its power to tax.

The suit also explains that the condition flunks the Pennhurst test:

The Tax Mandate is far from “unambiguous.” What changes to tax policy that cause a decrease in net revenue are “indirectly” offset by funds acquired through the Act? Unless the answer is “every change to tax policy,” neither the English language nor economic theory provides an answer. And how does one know whether a change to tax policy causes a net reduction in revenue? For example, if revenue would have decreased even further but for a tax cut, would the tax cut still violate the Mandate? The Tax Mandate does not answer these questions. As a result, the conditions it imposes are too ambiguous to be upheld under the Spending Clause.

The Biden Administration may not be ready for this suit. At present, there is no confirmed Solicitor General. Poor Acting Solicitor General Prelogar has spent all her time flipping positions before the Supreme Court. I’m sure Roberts is seething. And I have no clue who is running the Office of Legal Counsel. Someone in the White House must know this case is a loser. And even if Secretary Yellen issues some favorable guidance, I don’t think Ohio’s injury will be satisfied. An agency cannot avoid a Pennhurst problem through Chevron deference. In other words, if the spending provision is ambiguous, the government cannot cure that separations of powers problem through guidance documents. The remedy for an ambiguous spending provision is to declare it unconstitutional. Merrick Garland knows all too well how this case will end.

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‘The Best Chief in America,’ Newly Hired To Run Miami’s Police Department, Presided Over Deadly Corruption in Houston


Art-Acevedo-3-15-21-Newscom

Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, who just hired Art Acevedo to run that city’s police department, calls him “the best chief in America.” Given Acevedo’s record as head of the Houston Police Department (HPD), that would be a pretty sad commentary on the competence, honesty, and intelligence of the nation’s law enforcement leaders.

One person who emphatically disagrees with Suarez’s assessment is John Nicholas, whose 58-year-old sister, Rhogena Nicholas, was killed by plainclothes Houston narcotics officers in January 2019 during a no-knock drug raid based on a fraudulent search warrant. In circumstances that have yet to be fully explained, the cops also killed her 59-year-old husband, Dennis Tuttle, and the couple’s dog.

“To this day, he hasn’t fixed his own department,” John Nicholas told WFOR, the CBS station in Miami. In fact, Acevedo, who is president of the Major Cities Chiefs Association, did not seem to think his department needed fixing. Ten months after the deadly home invasion—when it was already clear that veteran narcotics officer Gerald Goines, with a colleague’s help, had falsely portrayed Rhogena Nicholas and her husband as dangerous heroin dealers—Acevedo was still dismissing “the chances of this being systemic.”

So far a dozen current or former members of the HPD’s Narcotics Squad 15, which executed the raid, have been charged with felonies as a result of the investigations prompted by the operation that killed Nicholas and Tuttle. The defendants include Goines, who faces federal civil rights charges as well as state charges of felony murder, tampering with government documents, and theft of public money; Steven Bryant, who backed up Goines’ story about a fictional heroin purchase by a nonexistent confidential informant; Felipe Gallegos, who is charged with murdering Tuttle; officers accused of claiming phony overtime pay; and supervisors charged with falsifying records.

According to news reports and court documents, Goines routinely lied to obtain no-knock search warrants, framed innocent people, handled evidence recklessly, carried on a sexual relationship with a confidential informant, and stole public money. Local prosecutors, who are reviewing hundreds of cases in which Goines and Bryant were involved, say other narcotics officers were also dishonest and corrupt.

“Houston Police narcotics officers falsified documentation about drug payments to confidential informants with the support of supervisors,” Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg said in July. “Goines and others could never have preyed on our community the way they did without the participation of their supervisors; every check and balance in place to stop this type of behavior was circumvented.”

A federal civil rights lawsuit that Nicholas’ brother and mother filed in January says Squad 15 “operated as a criminal organization” that “tormented Houston residents for years.” According to the complaint, the officers’ crimes included “search warrants obtained by perjury,” “false statements submitted to cover up the fraudulent warrants,” “improper payments to informants,” “illegal and unconstitutional invasions of homes,” “illegal arrests,” and “excessive force.”

Acevedo wants credit for not sweeping Goines’ lethal fraud under the rug. “I understand the family’s pain,” he told WFOR. “My heart goes out to them. But I think it’s important for the public to know that when everything comes out through depositions and ultimately through a trial, they’re going to know that this police chief played a role into uncovering the malfeasance and uncovering the facts in this case.”

After his officers killed Nicholas and Tuttle, however, Acevedo credulously accepted their account of what had happened. He repeatedly hailed them as “heroes,” describing Goines as “a big teddy bear” who was “tough as nails” and had “tremendous courage.” He posthumously tarred Nicholas and Tuttle as public menaces, claiming their neighbors were grateful that police had taken down a locally notorious “drug house” and “problem location.” Acevedo was “on TV calling my sister and her husband scumbags and dopers, drug dealers,” John Nicholas noted. Meanwhile, actual neighbors told local reporters they had never seen any signs of suspicious activity at the house and described the longtime residents as perfectly nice people.

Even after Goines admitted that the heroin purchase he described in his search warrant affidavit never happened, Acevedo bizarrely insisted that police “had probable cause to be there.” He said there was ample evidence to justify the raid, citing a tip from a woman who reported that her daughter “was in there doing heroin” and said “there were guns and heroin.”

Three months later, a federal grand jury charged Patricia Ann Garcia, the tipster cited by Acevedo, with making the whole thing up. Last week Garcia pleaded guilty to making false 911 calls. In other words, the investigation that Avecedo defended was based on lies from start to finish.

Acevedo still says Goines’ colleagues in Squad 15 acted in good faith based on a warrant they believed was valid and should not be held responsible for his fabrications. In January, after a Harris County grand jury indicted Gallegos for killing Tuttle, Acevedo reiterated his position that the cops “responded appropriately” to the “deadly threat” they encountered after they broke in the door and immediately opened fire, killing the dog with a shotgun.

An independent forensic examination commissioned by the Tuttle and Nicholas families cast doubt on key parts of Acevedo’s story, including the justification for shooting the dog and the claim that Nicholas, who was unarmed, posed an imminent threat. The physical evidence indicates that the cops, who said Tuttle responded to the violent invasion of his home by grabbing a revolver and shooting at the intruders, blindly and wildly fired dozens of rounds. Tuttle—who supposedly fired four rounds, hitting one cop in the shoulder, two in the face, and one in the neck—was frail and disabled, which his family says makes that feat implausible.

The Nicholas lawsuit names Acevedo as a defendant, along with the city and 13 officers who helped instigate the raid, executed it, or allowed it to happen. Acevedo “has continued to praise members of Squad 15 as ‘heroes’—other than the symbolic, conveniently sacrificed fall-men [Goines and Bryant],” the complaint says. “Acevedo professed that he ‘stands with the members of Squad 15,’ who he ‘considers victims.’ Even worse, without any legitimate evidence or basis, Acevedo claimed ‘the facts are going to come out’ to show that HPD ‘had probable cause to be there.'”

The lawsuit argues that Acevedo “ratified both the unreasonable search and the excessive deadly force utilized by Squad 15 because he (1) failed to supervise, reprimand, or take action regarding the violations prior to the raid and (2) he approved and ratified the raid, including the existence of probable cause, after the raid occurred.” By “ratifying these acts,” the complaint says, Acevedo “approved of obvious violations of clearly established law.”

The Nicholas and Tuttle families complain that Acevedo, despite his promises of transparency, has refused to answer basic questions about the raid’s genesis and execution, including what basis (if any) there was to think Tuttle and Nicholas were drug dealers, how many rounds were fired during the raid, who shot whom, and how police know that. One reason those details remain unclear: There is no body camera footage of the raid itself.

After the raid, Acevedo belatedly decided that narcotics officers should wear body cameras while executing search warrants. He also began requiring high-level approval for no-knock warrants.

While you might think “the best chief in America” would have seen the value of such precautions even before a scandal forced his hand, Acevedo portrays himself as a forward-thinking reformer. He played that role during last year’s Black Lives Matter protests, when he joined demonstrators in decrying racism and expressing outrage at George Floyd’s death, and at the 2020 Democratic National Convention, where he urged “action at the national level” to address police abuse. Acevedo’s passing of the buck to Congress was unsurprising, given the deadly corruption in his own department.

After Suarez described Acevedo as “the Tom Brady or Michael Jordan of police chiefs,” Houston Chronicle Web Editor Dan Carson offered a different take, calling Acevedo “the LeBron James of performative self-promotion.” Last summer, Carson noted, Acevedo “walked with BLM protesters and changed his Twitter avatar to an image of George Floyd while simultaneously sandbagging damning body camera footage of Houston police officers unloading bullets into the tased and dying body of 27-year-old Nicolas Chavez.” The footage “didn’t see the light of day for nearly six months—a testament to Acevedo’s broad skillset and coolness under hypocrisy.” Carson also cited Acevedo’s praise of the cops who killed Nicholas and Tuttle, his criticism of bail reforms he claimed to support, and his unsubstantiated allegation that NFL player Michael Bennett had assaulted an elderly woman.

Acevedo, who was Houston’s police chief for about four years, previously ran the Austin Police Department. A couple of months before he switched jobs, Austin City Manager Marc Ott reprimanded him for insubordination, fined him five days’ pay, and warned that his job was in jeopardy. In that case, the main issue was the complaint that Acevedo had rushed to judgment about a fatal police shooting of an unarmed black teenager named David Joseph. Acevedo fired Geoffrey Freeman, the officer who killed Joseph, a month after the shooting, saying he had violated department policy. That decision outraged the local police union, and city officials told Acevedo to stop publicly commenting on the case. His failure to do so was the official justification for the reprimand and penalty, although Ott also mentioned unspecified “operation and judgment concerns.”

Acevedo’s reaction to the deadly Houston raid suggests he learned something from that episode. Rather than taking swift action to address the rot revealed by Ogg’s investigators, he implied that the problem was limited to a couple of bad apples. He bent over backward to defend the officers who killed Nicholas and Tuttle, deeming their actions legally justified without revealing the factual basis for that conclusion. He said police had good reason to suspect the couple of selling drugs, but he did not present any evidence of that, aside from the phony tip and the fraudulent search warrant affidavit.

Acevedo promised he would “leave no stone unturned to determine the good, the bad and the ugly.” But more than two years after the raid, he has not told the public what was under those stones, and he leaves Houston without satisfactorily explaining why Nicholas and Tuttle died. Instead, he and the city have actively resisted the families’ attempts to determine the truth, fighting them in court to avoid revealing key information. In light of Acevedo’s reflexive defensiveness and stubborn obfuscation, Houston’s gain is Miami’s loss.

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A New ‘War on Terror’ Would Be Just as Disastrous as the Original


new war

More than two months after rioters stormed the Capitol, Washington, D.C. is still occupied by National Guard troops, and the police say they want to make the fencing that surrounds the Capitol building permanent.

Political scientist Max Abrahms studies global terrorism. He says that the U.S. government’s response to January 6 is disproportionate to the actual threat and has turned the Capitol into something resembling a green zone in a war-torn country.

“I think that this was one of those situations where the government swung like a pendulum from doing too little to do way too much,” Abrahms tells Reason.  

“They were clearly overwhelmed and unprepared for this onslaught,” says Abrahms. “So the government responded by putting in place something like 25,000 national guards in caging up the Capitol. That would be appropriate not to deter the next Timothy McVeigh but to deter something like ISIS storming Baghdad.”

Abrahms says that “luckily that’s not the threat environment we’re dealing with in the United States.”

Abrahms worries that the war on terror, started by the George W. Bush administration after 9/11 and which included detaining suspects without due process, torture, mass surveillance, and counterproductive military action, is coming to the homefront. The target: white supremacists and anti-government militia groups.

“Our response to 9/11, and this isn’t stressed enough, was actually deeply counterproductive against the kinds of terrorists that we were combating,” says Abrahms. “Americans can do much better. We don’t need to use a faulty model and apply it to the very real terrorism problem that we have at home.”

Instead of toppling dictators, the tactics of this new domestic war on extremism have so far been limited to bullying social media companies into evicting so-called extremists from their platforms, as happened with Donald Trump. 

FBI Director Christopher Wray wants the government to consider repealing Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act to make it even easier to hold tech platforms liable for content that the government says incites violence. 

“While the immunity under Section 230 has obviously helped the evolution of the social media industry, it’s also allowed it to avoid a lot of the burdens and risks that other brick-and-mortar companies have had to face,” Wray said on March 2 to the Senate Judiciary Committee. 

Since the mid-1990s, FBI directors have been citing international terrorism as a reason to consider preventing the use of end-to-end encryption. Wray is now making the same arguments, citing domestic extremists.

“We are concerned about end-to-end encryption, especially default end-to-end encryption in connection with a lot of these platforms,” Wray testified.

In his book Rules for Rebels: The Science of Victory in Militant History, Abrahms argues that the foreign war on terror created power vacuums that made the world increasingly dangerous, such as when Saddam Hussein was replaced by Al-Qaeda in Iraq, or when U.S. intervention in Syria helped the jihadist group Al-Nusra foment power. Abrahms says we’re in danger of repeating the same dynamic in this new war on terror.

“Removing somebody like Donald Trump from Twitter…might seem like a great idea to some people until they realize that Trump isn’t the absolute worst leader that could possibly bubble up,” says Abrahms. “In all likelihood, the replacements are going to be even more extreme.”

“We see a similar phenomenon with people moving from more mainstream social media platforms like Twitter, to ones that have a higher concentration of right-wing extremists like Parler, or even apps with…end-to-end encryption where nobody could surveil them,” Abrahms says.

John Brennan, former CIA director under the Obama administration, told MSNBC in January that the Biden team is working “in laser-like fashion” to investigate what he says resembles an overseas insurgency.

“It brings together an unholy alliance frequently of religious extremists, authoritarians, fascists, bigots, racists, nativists…even libertarians,” Brennan said.

Abrahms argues that the perverse effect of lumping such disparate groups together is to push otherwise reasonable actors towards the extremes.

“I think that these different issues need to be unpacked and mainstream media can’t simply say that everyone on the right—including those who are more in favor of limited government and sympathetic to some libertarian views—is crazy and believe in pedophile rings at pizza parlors,” says Abrahms

Abrahms believes that the mainstream media and the government are attempting to weaponize some of the legitimate fear that has resulted from the events of January 6 in order to marginalize those on the political right, “including those with quite reasonable views.”

“There’s this perverse phenomenon where terrorism commentators and pundits, broadcast ubiquitously by the media, make it seem as if terrorists are just so brilliant, strategic, and effective,” Abrahms says. “In fact, we often see the exact opposite.”

Abrahms says that terrorism frequently results in a backlash against those who perpetrate it. And he argues that the January 6 riots have made far-right groups look much less attractive to members.

“It’s become a national embarrassment to be part of these groups,” says Abrahms.

The Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act, which passed in the House back in September, would create new federal law enforcement units focused solely on domestic terrorism. Some politicians and law enforcement officials have said Congress should go further 

“In U.S. law there is no list of domestic terrorism organizations the same way there is for foreign terrorist organizations,” Wray said before the Senate. 

“I don’t know if we should have one or not,” responded Senator Lindsey Grahm (R–S.C.). “But it’s time to think about it.”

Abrahms argues that such illiberal actions could actually serve to incite terrorism. 

“One of the telltale signs of an illiberal government is when it makes no distinction between what it sees as political extremists and tactical extremists,” Abrahms says.

Abrahms is concerned that a heavy-handed crackdown lumping the extreme beliefs of some on the right together with the extreme tactics of would-be terrorists will ultimately backfire, just as the war on terror swept up many innocent Muslims and spurred even greater radicalization. 

“I’m really worried, frankly, about Timothy McVeigh 2.0. I think that the government needs to do everything possible not to create one,” says Abrahms. “But I’m not confident that the government actually is doing that.”

Abrahms believes that the government should prosecute those who commit terrorist acts of violence to the fullest extent of the law. However, he worries that there will be some crossover between who the government regards as a political extremist and an actual terrorist. 

“We cannot crack down on people just because we don’t like their ideology,” Abrahms says. “Otherwise the government is going to turn into the thought police and that is going to spawn the next generation of terrorists.”

Produced by Zach Weissmueller. Capitol riot footage by Ford Fischer. 

Photo credits: FBI/Zuma Press/Newscom; Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call/Newscom; Dabiq/ZUMA Press/Newscom; Pete Souza/ZUMA Press/Newscom; Moore Mike / Mirrorpix/Newscom; CNP / Polaris/Newscom; FBI/ZUMA Press/Newscom; Dabiq/ZUMA Press/Newscom; Moore Mike / Mirrorpix/Newscom; Pool/Sipa USA/Newscom; Stanislav Kogiku / SOPA Images/S/Newscom; Thiago Prudencio/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom; Jaap Arriens/Sipa USA/Newscom; Christy Bowe/Polaris/Newscom; Graeme Sloan/Sipa USA/Newscom; KEVIN DIETSCH/UPI/Newscom; Dennis Brack / DanitaDelimont.com/ Danita Delimont Photography/Newscom; Ho/ZUMA Press/Newscom

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Breaking: Ohio Challenges Constitutionality of American Rescue Plan Act

Yesterday, I noted that 21 State Attorneys General threatened to challenge the American Rescue Plan Act. They alleged that a conditional spending provision was inconsistent with South Dakota v. Dole. Missing from that list was Ohio. Now we know why.

Today, the Ohio Attorney General filed suit against Secretary Yellen and the Treasury Department. The Buckeye State seeks a preliminary injunction.

Here is the introduction:

The Tax Mandate bars States that take money under the Act from using that funding to “directly or indirectly” offset revenue loss from tax reductions. Id. (emphasis added). But since “[m]oney is fungible,” Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, 561 U.S. 1, 37 (2010), any money that a State receives through the Act will necessarily offset, either directly or indirectly, every tax reduc-tion that the State might pursue. The Tax Mandate thus gives the States a choice: they can have either the badly needed federal funds or their sovereign authority to set state tax policy. But they cannot have both. In our current economic crisis, that is no choice at all. It is a metaphorical “gun to the head.” Nat’l Fed’n of Indep. Bus. v. Sebelius (“NFIB”), 567 U.S. 519, 581 (2012) (op. of Roberts, C.J.).

This coercive offer of federal funds violates the Constitution. The Spending Clause empowers Congress to “provide for”—that is, to spend money in support of—the “general Welfare.” Art. I., §8. c.1. But while “Congress has substantial powers to govern the Nation directly, including in areas of intimate concern to the States, the Constitution has never been understood to confer upon Congress the ability to require the States to govern according to Congress’ instructions.” New York v. United States, 505 U.S. 144, 162 (1992). And Congress may not circumvent that limitation by using its spending power to “indirectly coerce[] a State to adopt a federal regulatory system as its own.” NFIB, 567 U.S. at 578 (op. of Roberts, C.J.). That is precisely what the Tax Mandate attempts to do: it seeks to “drive the state legislatures under the whip of economic pressure into the enactment” of Congress’s preferred tax policies. Stew-ard Mach. Co. v. Davis, 301 U.S. 548, 587 (1937).Congress exceeded its constitutional authority when it passed the Tax Man-date. The Court should enjoin the provision’s enforcement, at least in its application to Ohio.

The relief bill would give Ohio about $5.5 billion, which translates to roughly 7.4% of the Ohio’s total expenditures. Definitely in the 10% ballpark referenced in NFIB.

In NFIB, the Court determined that the Medicaid expansion coerced the States because it “threatened” to deny States funding equal to “over 10 percent of” their “overall budget[s]” unless they agreed to expand their Medicaid programs. 567 U.S. at 582. The Act is similarly coercive: Ohio will be denied funding equal to 7.4 percent of its total expenditure in 2020—funding the State badly needs in an economic crisis—unless it agrees to limits on its power to tax.

The suit also explains that the condition flunks the Pennhurst test:

The Tax Mandate is far from “unambiguous.” What changes to tax policy that cause a decrease in net revenue are “indirectly” offset by funds acquired through the Act? Unless the answer is “every change to tax policy,” neither the English language nor economic theory provides an answer. And how does one know whether a change to tax policy causes a net reduction in revenue? For example, if revenue would have decreased even further but for a tax cut, would the tax cut still violate the Mandate? The Tax Mandate does not answer these questions. As a result, the conditions it imposes are too ambiguous to be upheld under the Spending Clause.

The Biden Administration may not be ready for this suit. At present, there is no confirmed Solicitor General. Poor Acting Solicitor General Prelogar has spent all her time flipping positions before the Supreme Court. I’m sure Roberts is seething. And I have no clue who is running the Office of Legal Counsel. Someone in the White House must know this case is a loser. And even if Secretary Yellen issues some favorable guidance, I don’t think Ohio’s injury will be satisfied. An agency cannot avoid a Pennhurst problem through Chevron deference. In other words, if the spending provision is ambiguous, the government cannot cure that separations of powers problem through guidance documents. The remedy for an ambiguous spending provision is to declare it unconstitutional. Merrick Garland knows all too well how this case will end.

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‘The Best Chief in America,’ Newly Hired To Run Miami’s Police Department, Presided Over Deadly Corruption in Houston


Art-Acevedo-3-15-21-Newscom

Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, who just hired Art Acevedo to run that city’s police department, calls him “the best chief in America.” Given Acevedo’s record as head of the Houston Police Department (HPD), that would be a pretty sad commentary on the competence, honesty, and intelligence of the nation’s law enforcement leaders.

One person who emphatically disagrees with Suarez’s assessment is John Nicholas, whose 58-year-old sister, Rhogena Nicholas, was killed by plainclothes Houston narcotics officers in January 2019 during a no-knock drug raid based on a fraudulent search warrant. In circumstances that have yet to be fully explained, the cops also killed her 59-year-old husband, Dennis Tuttle, and the couple’s dog.

“To this day, he hasn’t fixed his own department,” John Nicholas told WFOR, the CBS station in Miami. In fact, Acevedo, who is president of the Major Cities Chiefs Association, did not seem to think his department needed fixing. Ten months after the deadly home invasion—when it was already clear that veteran narcotics officer Gerald Goines, with a colleague’s help, had falsely portrayed Rhogena Nicholas and her husband as dangerous heroin dealers—Acevedo was still dismissing “the chances of this being systemic.”

So far a dozen current or former members of the HPD’s Narcotics Squad 15, which executed the raid, have been charged with felonies as a result of the investigations prompted by the operation that killed Nicholas and Tuttle. The defendants include Goines, who faces federal civil rights charges as well as state charges of felony murder, tampering with government documents, and theft of public money; Steven Bryant, who backed up Goines’ story about a fictional heroin purchase by a nonexistent confidential informant; Felipe Gallegos, who is charged with murdering Tuttle; officers accused of claiming phony overtime pay; and supervisors charged with falsifying records.

According to news reports and court documents, Goines routinely lied to obtain no-knock search warrants, framed innocent people, handled evidence recklessly, carried on a sexual relationship with a confidential informant, and stole public money. Local prosecutors, who are reviewing cases in which Goines and Bryant were involved, say other narcotics officers were also dishonest and corrupt.

“Houston Police narcotics officers falsified documentation about drug payments to confidential informants with the support of supervisors,” Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg said in July. “Goines and others could never have preyed on our community the way they did without the participation of their supervisors; every check and balance in place to stop this type of behavior was circumvented.”

A federal civil rights lawsuit that Nicholas’ brother and mother filed in January says Squad 15 “operated as a criminal organization” that “tormented Houston residents for years.” According to the complaint, the officers’ crimes included “search warrants obtained by perjury,” “false statements submitted to cover up the fraudulent warrants,” “improper payments to informants,” “illegal and unconstitutional invasions of homes,” “illegal arrests,” and “excessive force.”

Acevedo wants credit for not sweeping Goines’ lethal fraud under the rug. “I understand the family’s pain,” he told WFOR. “My heart goes out to them. But I think it’s important for the public to know that when everything comes out through depositions and ultimately through a trial, they’re going to know that this police chief played a role into uncovering the malfeasance and uncovering the facts in this case.”

After his officers killed Nicholas and Tuttle, however, Acevedo credulously accepted their account of what had happened. He repeatedly hailed them as “heroes,” describing Goines as “a big teddy bear” who was “tough as nails” and had “tremendous courage.” He posthumously tarred Nicholas and Tuttle as public menaces, claiming their neighbors were grateful that police had taken down a locally notorious “drug house” and “problem location.” Acevedo was “on TV calling my sister and her husband scumbags and dopers, drug dealers,” John Nicholas noted. Meanwhile, actual neighbors told local reporters they had never seen any signs of suspicious activity at the house and described the longtime residents as perfectly nice people.

Even after Goines admitted that the heroin purchase he described in his search warrant affidavit never happened, Acevedo bizarrely insisted that police “had probable cause to be there.” He said there was ample evidence to justify the raid, citing a tip from a woman who reported that her daughter “was in there doing heroin” and said “there were guns and heroin.”

Three months later, a federal grand jury charged Patricia Ann Garcia, the tipster cited by Acevedo, with making the whole thing up. Last week Garcia pleaded guilty to making false 911 calls. In other words, the investigation that Avecedo defended was based on lies from start to finish.

Acevedo still says Goines’ colleagues in Squad 15 acted in good faith based on a warrant they believed was valid and should not be held responsible for his fabrications. In January, after a Harris County grand jury indicted Gallegos for killing Tuttle, Acevedo reiterated his position that the cops “responded appropriately” to the “deadly threat” they encountered after they broke in the door and immediately opened fire, killing the dog with a shotgun.

An independent forensic examination commissioned by the Tuttle and Nicholas families cast doubt on key parts of Acevedo’s story, including the justification for shooting the dog and the claim that Nicholas, who was unarmed, posed an imminent threat. The physical evidence indicates that the cops, who said Tuttle responded to the violent invasion of his home by grabbing a revolver and shooting at the intruders, blindly and wildly fired dozens of rounds. Tuttle—who supposedly fired four rounds, hitting one cop in the shoulder, two in the face, and one in the neck—was frail and disabled, which his family says makes that feat implausible.

The Nicholas lawsuit names Acevedo as a defendant, along with the city and 13 officers who helped instigate the raid, executed it, or allowed it to happen. Acevedo “has continued to praise members of Squad 15 as ‘heroes’—other than the symbolic, conveniently sacrificed fall-men [Goines and Bryant],” the complaint says. “Acevedo professed that he ‘stands with the members of Squad 15,’ who he ‘considers victims.’ Even worse, without any legitimate evidence or basis, Acevedo claimed ‘the facts are going to come out’ to show that HPD ‘had probable cause to be there.'”

The lawsuit argues that Acevedo “ratified both the unreasonable search and the excessive deadly force utilized by Squad 15 because he (1) failed to supervise, reprimand, or take action regarding the violations prior to the raid and (2) he approved and ratified the raid, including the existence of probable cause, after the raid occurred.” By “ratifying these acts,” the complaint says, Acevedo “approved of obvious violations of clearly established law.”

The Nicholas and Tuttle families complain that Acevedo, despite his promises of transparency, has refused to answer basic questions about the raid’s genesis and execution, including what basis (if any) there was to think Tuttle and Nicholas were drug dealers, how many rounds were fired during the raid, who shot whom, and how police know that. One reason those details remain unclear: There is no body camera footage of the raid itself.

After the raid, Acevedo belatedly decided that narcotics officers should wear body cameras while executing search warrants. He also began requiring high-level approval for no-knock warrants.

While you might think “the best chief in America” would have seen the value of such precautions even before a scandal forced his hand, Acevedo portrays himself as a forward-thinking reformer. He played that role during last year’s Black Lives Matter protests, when he joined demonstrators in decrying racism and expressing outrage at George Floyd’s death, and at the 2020 Democratic National Convention, where he urged “action at the national level” to address police abuse. Acevedo’s passing of the buck to Congress was unsurprising, given the deadly corruption in his own department.

After Suarez described Acevedo as “the Tom Brady or Michael Jordan of police chiefs,” Houston Chronicle Web Editor Dan Carson offered a different take, calling Acevedo “the LeBron James of performative self-promotion.” Last summer, Carson noted, Acevedo “walked with BLM protesters and changed his Twitter avatar to an image of George Floyd while simultaneously sandbagging damning body camera footage of Houston police officers unloading bullets into the tased and dying body of 27-year-old Nicolas Chavez.” The footage “didn’t see the light of day for nearly six months—a testament to Acevedo’s broad skillset and coolness under hypocrisy.” Carson also cited Acevedo’s praise of the cops who killed Nicholas and Tuttle, his criticism of bail reforms he claimed to support, and his unsubstantiated allegation that NFL player Michael Bennett had assaulted an elderly woman.

Acevedo, who was Houston’s police chief for about four years, previously ran the Austin Police Department. A couple of months before he switched jobs, Austin City Manager Marc Ott reprimanded him for insubordination, fined him five days’ pay, and warned that his job was in jeopardy. In that case, the main issue was the complaint that Acevedo had rushed to judgment about a fatal police shooting of an unarmed black teenager named David Joseph. Acevedo fired Geoffrey Freeman, the officer who killed Joseph, a month after the shooting, saying he had violated department policy. That decision outraged the local police union, and city officials told Acevedo to stop publicly commenting on the case. His failure to do so was the official justification for the reprimand and penalty, although Ott also mentioned unspecified “operation and judgment concerns.”

Acevedo’s reaction to the deadly Houston raid suggests he learned something from that episode. Rather than taking swift action to address the rot revealed by Ogg’s investigators, he implied that the problem was limited to a couple of bad apples. He bent over backward to defend the officers who killed Nicholas and Tuttle, deeming their actions legally justified without revealing the factual basis for that conclusion. He said police had good reason to suspect the couple of selling drugs, but he did not present any evidence of that, aside from the phony tip and the fraudulent search warrant affidavit.

Acevedo promised he would “leave no stone unturned to determine the good, the bad and the ugly.” But more than two years after the raid, he has not told the public what was under those stones, and he leaves Houston without satisfactorily explaining why Nicholas and Tuttle died. Instead, he and the city have actively resisted the families’ attempts to determine the truth, fighting them in court to avoid revealing key information. In light of Acevedo’s reflexive defensiveness and stubborn obfuscation, Houston’s gain is Miami’s loss.

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Biden’s Planned Corporate Tax Hike Will Cost Jobs and Reduce Economic Growth. Because That’s What Taxes Do.


polspphotos775172

President Joe Biden is reportedly considering a plan to hike taxes on individuals and corporations in order to help offset another splurge of government spending. Preliminary analyses of the possible tax hikes show they would transfer as much as $2 trillion from the private sector to the government, likely costing jobs and reducing wages for American workers.

Of course, that’s what taxes do. Every dollar the federal government drains from the economy is a dollar that cannot be used to grow a business, cannot be used to purchase new equipment, and cannot be paid to workers or shareholders.

Biden is considering hikes to both the personal income tax and corporate income tax, Bloomberg reports, citing unnamed White House sources. Advisers are reportedly kicking around ideas like raising the corporate income tax rate to 28 percent (from 21 percent); hiking personal income taxes on individuals and households that earn over $400,000 annually; and imposing a higher capital gains tax for individuals who make over $1 million annually. The higher taxes would be paired with an expected White Houe announcement of what’s likely to be a multi-trillion-dollar infrastructure spending package.

We’ll have to wait to see the specifics of the proposal, but much of what is under consideration seems roughly in line with the tax policies the Biden campaign published last year. If enacted, those policies would raise federal revenue by about $2.1 trillion over 10 years, according to an analysis by the Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan think tank. The organization says Biden’s plans would reduce America’s GDP by between 0.3 percent and 0.7 percent annually for the rest of the decade.

The corporate tax hike alone would reduce long-term economic growth by about 0.8 percent, kill 159,000 jobs, and reduce wages, according to a separate analysis by the Tax Foundation, a nonpartisan think tank. Raising the federal corporate tax rate to 28 percent would make the average state-federal tax burden for American businesses 32.34 percent—the highest rate in the developed world.

“Workers across the income scale would bear much of the tax increase,” write the Tax Foundation’s Garrett Watson and William McBride. “For example, the bottom 20 percent of earners would on average see a 1.45 percent drop in after-tax income in the long run.”

Politically, moving the corporate income tax rate to 28 percent would be a symbolic win for Democrats. That’s what the federal government charged American businesses before Republicans pushed through a package of tax cuts in 2017 aimed at increasing U.S. competitiveness with other large economies. Undoing those tax cuts for corporations and high-earning individuals has become a top priority for congressional Democrats.

“Biden will require corporations and the wealthiest Americans to pay their fair share,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told senators during her confirmation hearing in January. She said the Biden administration would seek multilateral agreements to set a global minimum corporate tax as part of a strategy to prevent American companies from shifting profits overseas to avoid higher taxes here.

On one hand, any clear-eyed assessment of America’s fiscal status must leave room for tax increases as part of an overall strategy to balance the budget. The national debt now exceeds $28 trillion, and the annual budget deficit was already on pace to exceed $2 trillion even before last week’s passage of a $1.9 trillion spending bill that will be entirely paid for with borrowing. Both the debt and deficit are expected to grow in the coming years.

But Biden’s plan, according to Bloomberg, seems to be aimed at using this tax increase to offset even more spending. That’s an approach that Congress should carefully scrutinize with both eyes fixed on the growing, unsustainable national debt.

Policy makers should also keep in mind that many businesses are still feeling the effects of President Donald Trump’s tariffs, which continue to function as a sort of stealth tax hike for many businesses. That’s especially true for the manufacturing sector, which had slipped into recession in 2019—before the pandemic hit—in large part due to the increased costs and uncertainty raised by the U.S.-China trade war.

Biden has been unwilling to remove those tariffs, even though doing so would help stimulate an economic recovery. In fact, the administration appears to be aiming to make things even harder for American businesses as they emerge from the pandemic.

Trump made it more expensive to purchase the wares and equipment that American businesses need to buy to earn a profit. Now, Biden may be planning to take a larger share of whatever profit they can scratch out.

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Biden’s Planned Corporate Tax Hike Will Cost Jobs and Reduce Economic Growth. Because That’s What Taxes Do.


polspphotos775172

President Joe Biden is reportedly considering a plan to hike taxes on individuals and corporations in order to help offset another splurge of government spending. Preliminary analyses of the possible tax hikes show they would transfer as much as $2 trillion from the private sector to the government, likely costing jobs and reducing wages for American workers.

Of course, that’s what taxes do. Every dollar the federal government drains from the economy is a dollar that cannot be used to grow a business, cannot be used to purchase new equipment, and cannot be paid to workers or shareholders.

Biden is considering hikes to both the personal income tax and corporate income tax, Bloomberg reports, citing unnamed White House sources. Advisers are reportedly kicking around ideas like raising the corporate income tax rate to 28 percent (from 21 percent); hiking personal income taxes on individuals and households that earn over $400,000 annually; and imposing a higher capital gains tax for individuals who make over $1 million annually. The higher taxes would be paired with an expected White Houe announcement of what’s likely to be a multi-trillion-dollar infrastructure spending package.

We’ll have to wait to see the specifics of the proposal, but much of what is under consideration seems roughly in line with the tax policies the Biden campaign published last year. If enacted, those policies would raise federal revenue by about $2.1 trillion over 10 years, according to an analysis by the Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan think tank. The organization says Biden’s plans would reduce America’s GDP by between 0.3 percent and 0.7 percent annually for the rest of the decade.

The corporate tax hike alone would reduce long-term economic growth by about 0.8 percent, kill 159,000 jobs, and reduce wages, according to a separate analysis by the Tax Foundation, a nonpartisan think tank. Raising the federal corporate tax rate to 28 percent would make the average state-federal tax burden for American businesses 32.34 percent—the highest rate in the developed world.

“Workers across the income scale would bear much of the tax increase,” write the Tax Foundation’s Garrett Watson and William McBride. “For example, the bottom 20 percent of earners would on average see a 1.45 percent drop in after-tax income in the long run.”

Politically, moving the corporate income tax rate to 28 percent would be a symbolic win for Democrats. That’s what the federal government charged American businesses before Republicans pushed through a package of tax cuts in 2017 aimed at increasing U.S. competitiveness with other large economies. Undoing those tax cuts for corporations and high-earning individuals has become a top priority for congressional Democrats.

“Biden will require corporations and the wealthiest Americans to pay their fair share,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told senators during her confirmation hearing in January. She said the Biden administration would seek multilateral agreements to set a global minimum corporate tax as part of a strategy to prevent American companies from shifting profits overseas to avoid higher taxes here.

On one hand, any clear-eyed assessment of America’s fiscal status must leave room for tax increases as part of an overall strategy to balance the budget. The national debt now exceeds $28 trillion, and the annual budget deficit was already on pace to exceed $2 trillion even before last week’s passage of a $1.9 trillion spending bill that will be entirely paid for with borrowing. Both the debt and deficit are expected to grow in the coming years.

But Biden’s plan, according to Bloomberg, seems to be aimed at using this tax increase to offset even more spending. That’s an approach that Congress should carefully scrutinize with both eyes fixed on the growing, unsustainable national debt.

Policy makers should also keep in mind that many businesses are still feeling the effects of President Donald Trump’s tariffs, which continue to function as a sort of stealth tax hike for many businesses. That’s especially true for the manufacturing sector, which had slipped into recession in 2019—before the pandemic hit—in large part due to the increased costs and uncertainty raised by the U.S.-China trade war.

Biden has been unwilling to remove those tariffs, even though doing so would help stimulate an economic recovery. In fact, the administration appears to be aiming to make things even harder for American businesses as they emerge from the pandemic.

Trump made it more expensive to purchase the wares and equipment that American businesses need to buy to earn a profit. Now, Biden may be planning to take a larger share of whatever profit they can scratch out.

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London NIMBYs and YIMBYs Unite To Build More Housing


london building

If anyone was a likely NIMBY (“not in my backyard”), you might suspect Jacob Rees-Mogg, the pinstriped suit- and monocle-wearing Conservative Party member, Brexit supporter, and leader of the British House of Commons. But there has been a striking change in the U.K. housing debate. YIMBYs (“yes in my backyard”) in England have staged a remarkable campaign, winning over seemingly impossible opponents, and proving that housing need not be a zero sum issue. Their housing reform ideas have built a surprisingly large coalition by making change more win-win. Some of those ideas are worth trying in the United States.

Like many U.S. cities, London faces an intense housing shortage. Since World War II, it has never grown its housing stock at the net percentage rate of the 1820s, let alone the vastly higher rate of the 1930s.

The fundamental reason is the English discretionary approval system, which makes almost every U.S. zoning system look like a developer’s dream. Faced with 70 years of failed attempts to reform that system, London’s YIMBYs were forced to get creative.

Rees-Mogg forms part of an unlikely coalition of YIMBY supporters in England, ranging from the former president of the Royal Institute of British Architects, to the left-wing mayor of London’s official design advocate, to the head of Crown Prince Charles’s official foundation.

Through zoning laws, homeowners have effective protection against the spillover effects or “externalities” of new development that would be a nuisance to them. But that protection is very blunt: In many places, it prohibits virtually all development, even where it might be done in a way that residents would benefit from and support.

Rather than pushing the state to try to strip away those protections in the face of fierce resistance from homeowners, London’s YIMBYs suggest harnessing the strong incentives facing each landowner to do more with their land. As George Mason University economist Tyler Cowen has pointed out, if we let them bargain about those protections, some homeowners will choose win-win deals to allow development on their own land. The idea is to give residents on single streets or blocks the power to vote by qualified majority to permit more homes—“street votes” and “block votes”—subject to rules to protect others.

That idea has won support from the British government and from a range of civic organizations more often seen on the NIMBY side of debates.

Street votes can be viewed as an alternative approach to zoning, adapting a 1998 idea of the libertarian zoning scholar Robert Ellickson for “Block Level Improvement Districts.” Because unanimity would generally be costly or impossible and upzoning does not remove any existing legal rights, “street votes” follow the analogy of corporations in allowing decisions by supermajority vote.

On a small scale, small groups of neighbors in expensive places like San Francisco could double their property value by choosing to allow more housing on their lots through duplexes, triplexes, or more. Alternatively, they might simply decide to allow auxiliary dwellings or “backyard cottages” for family members or a paying tenant, as has recently proven popular in Seattle.

The votes are meant as a supplement, allowing more housing without interrupting traditional zoning processes. In the suburbs of New York City, Washington, D.C., or Silicon Valley, they could create enormous value.

Most streets and blocks will probably not decide to allow extra housing. But if even a small proportion do, that could make a substantial difference to the currently small amounts of housing added each year in many U.S. cities.

Many arguments for more housing frame it as a zero sum struggle between society’s interest in building more homes and existing residents’ wish to defend their neighborhood. That is profoundly mistaken. Existing residents can become enthusiastic supporters of building more homes if they share in the benefits. In other parts of the economy, we allow private negotiations to find those win-win outcomes, but current top-down zoning systems struggle with the politics of allowing that type of beneficial change.

Related ideas have already succeeded in the U.S., from business improvement districts and UCLA urban planning scholar Donald Shoup’s idea to allow neighborhoods to opt into parking controls, to recent opt outs allowed by street and by block in Houston. We should try giving residents a supplementary power, not to add more housing restrictions, but to allow more housing where they see the benefits for them.

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London NIMBYs and YIMBYs Unite To Build More Housing


london building

If anyone was a likely NIMBY (“not in my backyard”), you might suspect Jacob Rees-Mogg, the pinstriped suit- and monocle-wearing Conservative Party member, Brexit supporter, and leader of the British House of Commons. But there has been a striking change in the U.K. housing debate. YIMBYs (“yes in my backyard”) in England have staged a remarkable campaign, winning over seemingly impossible opponents, and proving that housing need not be a zero sum issue. Their housing reform ideas have built a surprisingly large coalition by making change more win-win. Some of those ideas are worth trying in the United States.

Like many U.S. cities, London faces an intense housing shortage. Since World War II, it has never grown its housing stock at the net percentage rate of the 1820s, let alone the vastly higher rate of the 1930s.

The fundamental reason is the English discretionary approval system, which makes almost every U.S. zoning system look like a developer’s dream. Faced with 70 years of failed attempts to reform that system, London’s YIMBYs were forced to get creative.

Rees-Mogg forms part of an unlikely coalition of YIMBY supporters in England, ranging from the former president of the Royal Institute of British Architects, to the left-wing mayor of London’s official design advocate, to the head of Crown Prince Charles’s official foundation.

Through zoning laws, homeowners have effective protection against the spillover effects or “externalities” of new development that would be a nuisance to them. But that protection is very blunt: In many places, it prohibits virtually all development, even where it might be done in a way that residents would benefit from and support.

Rather than pushing the state to try to strip away those protections in the face of fierce resistance from homeowners, London’s YIMBYs suggest harnessing the strong incentives facing each landowner to do more with their land. As George Mason University economist Tyler Cowen has pointed out, if we let them bargain about those protections, some homeowners will choose win-win deals to allow development on their own land. The idea is to give residents on single streets or blocks the power to vote by qualified majority to permit more homes—“street votes” and “block votes”—subject to rules to protect others.

That idea has won support from the British government and from a range of civic organizations more often seen on the NIMBY side of debates.

Street votes can be viewed as an alternative approach to zoning, adapting a 1998 idea of the libertarian zoning scholar Robert Ellickson for “Block Level Improvement Districts.” Because unanimity would generally be costly or impossible and upzoning does not remove any existing legal rights, “street votes” follow the analogy of corporations in allowing decisions by supermajority vote.

On a small scale, small groups of neighbors in expensive places like San Francisco could double their property value by choosing to allow more housing on their lots through duplexes, triplexes, or more. Alternatively, they might simply decide to allow auxiliary dwellings or “backyard cottages” for family members or a paying tenant, as has recently proven popular in Seattle.

The votes are meant as a supplement, allowing more housing without interrupting traditional zoning processes. In the suburbs of New York City, Washington, D.C., or Silicon Valley, they could create enormous value.

Most streets and blocks will probably not decide to allow extra housing. But if even a small proportion do, that could make a substantial difference to the currently small amounts of housing added each year in many U.S. cities.

Many arguments for more housing frame it as a zero sum struggle between society’s interest in building more homes and existing residents’ wish to defend their neighborhood. That is profoundly mistaken. Existing residents can become enthusiastic supporters of building more homes if they share in the benefits. In other parts of the economy, we allow private negotiations to find those win-win outcomes, but current top-down zoning systems struggle with the politics of allowing that type of beneficial change.

Related ideas have already succeeded in the U.S., from business improvement districts and UCLA urban planning scholar Donald Shoup’s idea to allow neighborhoods to opt into parking controls, to recent opt outs allowed by street and by block in Houston. We should try giving residents a supplementary power, not to add more housing restrictions, but to allow more housing where they see the benefits for them.

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Massage Parlor Massacre: 8 Killed in Atlanta, Media Speculate About Anti-Asian Motive


gold-spa-3

Motive for fatal Atlanta shootings unclear. There’s no indication that last night’s fatal shooting spree at several Atlanta-area massage parlors was connected to conspiracy theories about sex trafficking at Asian massage businesses. Atlanta police say they showed up at one of the businesses in response to a call about a robbery in progress.

The motive for the shooting, which left eight people dead, is still unclear, despite many in the media attributing it to anti-Asian racism.

Seven women and one man were killed in the shootings; six of them were Asian and two were white, police report. One other man was injured as well.

A suspect in police custody, 21-year-old Robert Aaron Long, is thought to be behind the shootings at the two massage parlors in northeast Atlanta (Gold Massage Spa and Aromatherapy Spa) and one (Young’s Asian Massage) about 30 miles northwest of the city.

Red Canary Song, a group devoted to Asian sex worker and migrant rights, notes that workers at Asian massage parlors and spas are frequent targets of violence from both customers and police. People speculating about possible motives for this horrific crime probably shouldn’t overlook that fact in the rush to portray the shootings as stemming from anti-Asian racism tied to COVID-19.

But as of this morning, we simply don’t know what drove the Atlanta massage parlor shooter to commit these atrocities.

The identities of the victims have also not yet been released.

FREE MINDS

Ohio city seeks six months in jail for people who pay for sex. Authorities in Columbus, Ohio, are trying to put a social justice spin on ratcheting up penalties for prostitution. City Council members say it’s concern for people selling sex that is leading them to consider a new policy—but this policy would keep penalties for selling sex intact and continue to direct police resources to targeting sex work between consenting adults, increasing penalties for people who pay for sex.

“The Council’s proposed amendment institutes a penalty of up to $1,500 and 180 days in jail for a first offense,” notes WOSU. “The second and third offenses include mandatory minimum fines of $550 and $800 respectively, as well as 10 and 15 days in jail.”

Ohio State University professor of women, gender, and sexuality studies Jennifer Suchland has been speaking out against the proposed changes. “When you add more criminalization to the sex trade, it both makes it harder to reach potential victims and worsens the conditions for those who rely on the sex trade for survival,” Suchland said in a WOSU interview.

FREE MARKETS

Some good news on the economic front. “Federal Reserve officials, who are scheduled to release their latest economic projections at 2 p.m. ET, are likely to say they expect the labor market and inflation to rebound faster than they anticipated in December,” reports the Wall Street Journal. “The central bank is broadly expected to reaffirm its commitment to ultralow interest rates and bond purchases for now.”

QUICK HITS

• The Violence Against Women Act is up for an authorization vote. (Read more about the trouble with this Biden-driven legislation here.)

• Trying to protect internet user privacy is now being called an antitrust violation.

• Tennessee is trying (again) to limit residents’ ability to ship in wine from other states.

• Texas’ new social media bill is a mess.

 

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