Category: reason

One Note Samba (by Jobim): a new Russian translation

One of my favorite songs is One Note Samba (1960), with music by Antonio Carlos Jobim, Portuguese lyrics by Newton Mendonça, English translation by Jon Hendricks. Here’s an instrumental version, and below you’ll find a version (1962) with Herbie Mann playing the flute and Jobim singing the English lyrics.

Recently, I thought: Wouldn’t it be nice if there were a Russian version? Actually, there is a Russian version, by Aleksei Ivashchenko. You can find the words here, and you can see a performance here. That song is perfectly fine, but (much like the Russian translation of the famous Polish tango To ostatnia niedziela) it isn’t really a translation; it’s a song about how awesome this one note is, but it omits the whole love-song aspect of the original (where You are my One Note). Accordingly, I present my alternate translation of this samba, which you’re free to go out there and sing:

Эту маленькую самбу
Одной нотой напишу
Эта нота будет корнем
Тех других, что я спою

Эта новая — последствие
Той, которая была
Точно так, как я — неизбежное
Последствие тебя

Сколько здесь людей всё говорят и говорят
И всё ничтожно, почти ничтожно
Я пропел всю гамму мне известную
И всё ещё ничтожно, почти ничтожно

И я вернулся к первой ноте
Как всегда вернусь к тебе
И волью я в эту ноту
Всё, что чувствую к тебе

Кто все ноты распевает
До ре ми и гамму всю
Ничего не получает
Лучше ноту пой свою

Comments and suggestions welcome. (I know what you’re thinking: why rhyme “к тебе” with “к тебе”? But note the English rhyme “to you”/”for you” and the Portuguese rhyme “pra você”/”de você”.)

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These Doctors Exemplify the Virtues of Free Market Medicine

8105765_thumbnail

The patients of doctors William Crouch and Lee Gross know exactly what services will cost before they receive them—a radical concept only in health care. They don’t have to deal with benefit packages, coverage denials, hidden costs, in network vs. out of network, or any surprises whatsoever. Instead, their patients buy the medical equivalent of a Netflix subscription.

At $75 per month for adults, “We make it cheaper than a cell phone,” says Dr. Gross. “If you can afford a cell phone, you can afford the most basic aspect of healthcare delivery in the United States.”

Doctors Crouch and Gross are pioneers in a growing national movement called direct primary care. Tired of dealing with insurance companies when it comes to routine medical services, physicians around the country have exited the traditional system and are saying they can provide better care at a lower price by charging their patients a nominal monthly fee directly.

COVID-19 has pushed many doctors’ offices, which have been hard hit by the pandemic, to start doing telemedicine for the first time. And insurance companies and the government have started paying them for this service—for now. But direct primary care practices have proven far more agile and responsive to the needs of patients. They’re demonstrating that making American healthcare flexible and affordable requires abandoning the use of third-party insurance for routine care and adopting a market-based approach.

“Direct primary care is about as close to a free market in healthcare as you’ve ever seen in our country,” says Dr. Gross, who also serves on the Florida Medical Association‘s Council on Medical Economics and Practice Innovation. “We have never tried a true marketplace in healthcare. We have competition, but we have competition in a price fixed system with very opaque prices.”

Prior to adopting a direct primary care model, the pair ran their office as a traditional, fee-for-service practice, accepting insurance and Medicare. During that time, they became increasingly dissatisfied. Dr. Crouch says the traditional model was not always accessible to patients. “You kept seeing that people were being denied care. And a lot of it was cost-prohibitive. They were able to afford their insurance premiums, but then they couldn’t afford the needed test.”

Dr. Gross says that the bureaucratic strain of complying with Medicare rules became too much of a burden. “Every time I found a way [to] generate revenue to support this monstrosity that we were required to build, Medicare would knock the knees out from under us and take away that revenue source to where eventually we just said, you know what, no more.”

Direct primary care practices are demonstrating that the routine health services covered by Medicare and insurance companies cost so little that most patients could easily afford them out of pocket. So how did this third-payer payer system develop?

The government created it through the tax system. During World War 2, the IRS started allowing employers to provide health insurance as a form of pre-tax compensation, but if employees purchased their own health care they had to use after-tax dollars. This led to a system in which insurance companies and large health care providers negotiate prices behind closed doors, leaving patients out of the mix.

“We’ve essentially disrupted that entire paradigm,” Dr. Gross told Reason. “We’ve said, ‘Let’s have price transparency, let’s show people what these services actually cost,’ because they do have a dollar value. You can put a price tag on these things. We’ve proven that.”

When Crouch and Gross converted to direct primary care in 2010, they estimate that there were fewer than a dozen practices using this model. Today there are approximately 1,400 independent Direct Primary Care practices in 49 states. Virtually all of them charge a subscription fee that’s between $50 and $100 monthly to consult with the doctor at any time in-person or from home.

Crouch and Gross provide routine services like preventative check-ups, EKGs, minor procedures like biopsies, joint injections, the removal of cysts and small skin cancers, and some urgent care, such as sewing up lacerations and splinting uncomplicated fractures at no extra charge. In-office tests, like those for strep and pregnancy, are included as well. If a test needs to leave the office, patients pay cash prices that Gross and Crouch have negotiated on their behalf. Dr. Gross says that cutting out the third parties between diagnostics laboratories and patients has resulted in discounted rates of around 95 percent.

Not only does this model result in lower prices, but the COVID-19 pandemic has shown that direct primary care is more flexible as well. According to a survey conducted in July, 78 percent of physicians had seen a decline in patient volume because of COVID-19. In March, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services issued a temporary waiver stating that Medicare would pay the same rate for certain kinds of video telemedicine visits as in-person ones. But the types of visits it would cover changed over the course of the year and are still changing.

Whether insurance companies and the government continue covering online visits after the pandemic has no bearing on Crouch and Gross. And they didn’t have to wait for insurance companies and the government to OK telemedicine in the first place.

“We didn’t need to wait for BlueCross to convene a committee to pay for telemedicine services,” Gross says. “I didn’t need to wait two months or three months for Medicare to create a new billing code in order for me to provide technology visits for a patient…Instantly from in-person practice, we were an online practice. We were a parking lot practice. We were a house call practice. We did whatever we had to do in order to get the patient the proper care at the proper time.”

Gross adds that “for what Medicare pays for a single technology visit, I provide two to three months of unlimited technology visits, unlimited office visits, unlimited home visits, unlimited email visits. And so now the model is, again, pandemic tested. It’s proven that it’s actually a superior model because we have the built-in flexibility to do what we need at the time we need it.”

Thirty-two states and D.C. have passed laws requiring insurance companies to reimburse doctors at the same rate for telemedicine visits as they do for comparable in-person visits. Dr. Gross says that shouldn’t be decided by lobbyists, lawmakers, or government administrators. Prices should be set through market competition.

“The myth is that profit by its mere definition does not belong in the American healthcare system. And it’s evil and creates perverse incentives…The key to making that profit work is, again, the elimination of that third party in the middle of that profit, which just drives up costs, but adds no value.”

Produced by John Osterhoudt. Production support from Regan Taylor and Ian Keyser.

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via IFTTT

These Doctors Exemplify the Virtues of Free Market Medicine

8105765_thumbnail

The patients of doctors William Crouch and Lee Gross know exactly what services will cost before they receive them—a radical concept only in health care. They don’t have to deal with benefit packages, coverage denials, hidden costs, in network vs. out of network, or any surprises whatsoever. Instead, their patients buy the medical equivalent of a Netflix subscription.

At $75 per month for adults, “We make it cheaper than a cell phone,” says Dr. Gross. “If you can afford a cell phone, you can afford the most basic aspect of healthcare delivery in the United States.”

Doctors Crouch and Gross are pioneers in a growing national movement called direct primary care. Tired of dealing with insurance companies when it comes to routine medical services, physicians around the country have exited the traditional system and are saying they can provide better care at a lower price by charging their patients a nominal monthly fee directly.

COVID-19 has pushed many doctors’ offices, which have been hard hit by the pandemic, to start doing telemedicine for the first time. And insurance companies and the government have started paying them for this service—for now. But direct primary care practices have proven far more agile and responsive to the needs of patients. They’re demonstrating that making American healthcare flexible and affordable requires abandoning the use of third-party insurance for routine care and adopting a market-based approach.

“Direct primary care is about as close to a free market in healthcare as you’ve ever seen in our country,” says Dr. Gross, who also serves on the Florida Medical Association‘s Council on Medical Economics and Practice Innovation. “We have never tried a true marketplace in healthcare. We have competition, but we have competition in a price fixed system with very opaque prices.”

Prior to adopting a direct primary care model, the pair ran their office as a traditional, fee-for-service practice, accepting insurance and Medicare. During that time, they became increasingly dissatisfied. Dr. Crouch says the traditional model was not always accessible to patients. “You kept seeing that people were being denied care. And a lot of it was cost-prohibitive. They were able to afford their insurance premiums, but then they couldn’t afford the needed test.”

Dr. Gross says that the bureaucratic strain of complying with Medicare rules became too much of a burden. “Every time I found a way [to] generate revenue to support this monstrosity that we were required to build, Medicare would knock the knees out from under us and take away that revenue source to where eventually we just said, you know what, no more.”

Direct primary care practices are demonstrating that the routine health services covered by Medicare and insurance companies cost so little that most patients could easily afford them out of pocket. So how did this third-payer payer system develop?

The government created it through the tax system. During World War 2, the IRS started allowing employers to provide health insurance as a form of pre-tax compensation, but if employees purchased their own health care they had to use after-tax dollars. This led to a system in which insurance companies and large health care providers negotiate prices behind closed doors, leaving patients out of the mix.

“We’ve essentially disrupted that entire paradigm,” Dr. Gross told Reason. “We’ve said, ‘Let’s have price transparency, let’s show people what these services actually cost,’ because they do have a dollar value. You can put a price tag on these things. We’ve proven that.”

When Crouch and Gross converted to direct primary care in 2010, they estimate that there were fewer than a dozen practices using this model. Today there are approximately 1,400 independent Direct Primary Care practices in 49 states. Virtually all of them charge a subscription fee that’s between $50 and $100 monthly to consult with the doctor at any time in-person or from home.

Crouch and Gross provide routine services like preventative check-ups, EKGs, minor procedures like biopsies, joint injections, the removal of cysts and small skin cancers, and some urgent care, such as sewing up lacerations and splinting uncomplicated fractures at no extra charge. In-office tests, like those for strep and pregnancy, are included as well. If a test needs to leave the office, patients pay cash prices that Gross and Crouch have negotiated on their behalf. Dr. Gross says that cutting out the third parties between diagnostics laboratories and patients has resulted in discounted rates of around 95 percent.

Not only does this model result in lower prices, but the COVID-19 pandemic has shown that direct primary care is more flexible as well. According to a survey conducted in July, 78 percent of physicians had seen a decline in patient volume because of COVID-19. In March, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services issued a temporary waiver stating that Medicare would pay the same rate for certain kinds of video telemedicine visits as in-person ones. But the types of visits it would cover changed over the course of the year and are still changing.

Whether insurance companies and the government continue covering online visits after the pandemic has no bearing on Crouch and Gross. And they didn’t have to wait for insurance companies and the government to OK telemedicine in the first place.

“We didn’t need to wait for BlueCross to convene a committee to pay for telemedicine services,” Gross says. “I didn’t need to wait two months or three months for Medicare to create a new billing code in order for me to provide technology visits for a patient…Instantly from in-person practice, we were an online practice. We were a parking lot practice. We were a house call practice. We did whatever we had to do in order to get the patient the proper care at the proper time.”

Gross adds that “for what Medicare pays for a single technology visit, I provide two to three months of unlimited technology visits, unlimited office visits, unlimited home visits, unlimited email visits. And so now the model is, again, pandemic tested. It’s proven that it’s actually a superior model because we have the built-in flexibility to do what we need at the time we need it.”

Thirty-two states and D.C. have passed laws requiring insurance companies to reimburse doctors at the same rate for telemedicine visits as they do for comparable in-person visits. Dr. Gross says that shouldn’t be decided by lobbyists, lawmakers, or government administrators. Prices should be set through market competition.

“The myth is that profit by its mere definition does not belong in the American healthcare system. And it’s evil and creates perverse incentives…The key to making that profit work is, again, the elimination of that third party in the middle of that profit, which just drives up costs, but adds no value.”

Produced by John Osterhoudt. Production support from Regan Taylor and Ian Keyser.

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/3kFrXvU
via IFTTT

Science-Based Policy Means Decriminalizing Sex Work, Say Hundreds of Researchers

ptsphotoshotfour067152

Social scientists ask Biden administration to embrace sex worker rights. In an open letter to President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, a group of more than 250 researchers and scientists are calling for changes to the way that this country treats sex work and those engaged in it. Most prominently, the letter—which comes in conjunction with International Sex Worker Rights Day, March 3—says that sex work ought to be decriminalized.

“We decided to launch this campaign because, for too long, policies regarding sex work have been largely evidence-free, and we saw an urgent need to intervene in the debate by re-linking scientific research with public policy,” said George Washington University sociology professor Ronald Weitzer in a statement. For years, Weitzer’s work has tackled questions of police abuse and shone a light on the shoddy statistics and secret agendas underlying activist efforts to rebrand all sex work as human trafficking.

Weitzer is one of four organizers of the Scientists for Sex Worker Rights campaign, along with Angela Jones of Farmingdale State College and Barb Brents and Kate Hausbeck Korgan of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. All four have doctorates in sociology and have published books and/or peer-reviewed articles on various facets of sex work and sex trafficking.

Drawing on empirical research from around the world, the letter makes the case that decriminalizing prostitution must be part of the broader criminal justice reform movement in the U.S.

“The data clearly shows that criminalizing consensual adult sexual services causes severe harms, which fall mainly on the most marginalized groups—women, people of color, transgender and non-binary workers, workers’ with disabilities, and economically marginalized workers,” said Jones. This criminalization “does not prevent or minimize violence or abuse ostensibly identified with human trafficking.”

As we’ve been detailing for years here at Reason, this war on sex work not only harms people choosing to engage in prostitution but leaves little room for actually helping victims of violence and sexual exploitation.

Almost 90 percent of the feds’ “trafficking prevention” budget has gone to arresting adults engaging in consensual sex work, say the researchers.

This is despite the fact that prostitution alone isn’t even a federal crime.

In addition to calling on cities and states to decriminalize prostitution, Biden and Harris can demonstrate their alleged “commitment to science-driven policy” by supporting a Senate bill to study the effects of FOSTA—the 2018 law criminalizing online ads for sex work—with an eye toward FOSTA’s repeal, the scientists say. Preliminary evidence suggests it has been disastrous for sex worker safety (in addition to having a chilling effect on all manner of sexuality-related content online).

Biden and Harris should also “commit to protecting the First Amendment and free speech” by opposing the bipartisan-supported Stop Internet Sexual Exploitation Act (SISEA) and Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham’s EARN IT Act, states the letter.

“We have devoted our careers to the study of sex work, sexual commerce, trafficking, feminism, and law, and we are anxious to assist our nation in developing and advocating for policies that protect the rights, privacy, and autonomy of workers in the sex trade,” the researchers conclude. “Doing so will promote public health and harm reduction while decreasing violence and the powerful social stigma that sex workers face every day in the United States and around the world. This is a social justice and human rights issue, and we urge you to act.”

FREE MINDS

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is joining the fight against making nonprofit organizations disclose their donors. On Tuesday, the ACLU “filed an amicus brief with the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, the Human Rights Campaign, and PEN America urging the Supreme Court to protect the privacy rights of non-profit donors across progressive and conservative organizations,” the group announced in a press release.

The case, Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Becerra, challenges California’s blanket requirement for nonprofits to disclose their IRS Form 990 Schedule B documents, which identify their top donors. The groups argue that the rule violates the First Amendment right to associational privacy. Nonprofits’ Schedule B forms contain the names and addresses of major donors, highly sensitive information. Although California purports to keep this information confidential, California has repeatedly failed to keep the information confidential. Recently, for example, California inadvertently published more than 1,700 Schedule B forms on a public website over a period of many years.

FREE MARKETS

Parler is dismissing its lawsuit against Amazon:

QUICK HITS

• Texas and Mississippi are moving to quickly end all mask mandates and lockdown orders.

• Newly confirmed Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo wants to destroy Section 230:

• A new bill proposed in Massachusetts would decriminalize prostitution and expunge the records of “marijuana and prostitution-related arrests, detentions, conviction and incarceration.”

• Though a lot of folks are conveniently silent about it now, “the Biden administration has continued to use a Trump-era border policy to turn back immigrants at the border, including Haitians, much to the chagrin of advocates who point out that it effectively seals the border,” Buzzfeed reports.

• The Washington Post covers Democrats’ delusional economic plans.

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Texas Court Reverses $1.2 Million Libel Decision Based on Yelp Review Complaining About Earlier Unpaid Judgment

From Gharavi v. Khademazad, decided Friday by the Texas Fifth Court of Appeals (Dallas), in an opinion by Justice Ken Molberg joined by Justices Amanda Reichek and Erin Nowell:

Sean Gharavi appeals from a judgment of the trial court following a bench trial that awarded Behrooz Khademazad monetary damages in his libel, libel per se, business disparagement and negligence suit against Gharavi. Because we conclude Khademazad released his claims against Gharavi, we reverse the trial court’s judgment and render judgment that Khademazad take nothing….

Khademazad hired Gharavi’s company, Aidris, Inc., to develop an online marketing strategy to promote Khademazad’s dental business. When Khademazad failed to pay for the services, Aidris instituted arbitration proceedings to recover what it was owed. The arbitrator found in Aidris’s favor. Khademazad refused to voluntarily pay the arbitration award. The award was thereafter reduced to a judgment in Tarrant County. Khademazad refused to pay the trial court judgment.

Some seven months later, Gharavi, in his frustration over the judgment having not been paid, posted the following Yelp review on Khademazad’s dental practice site:

This is a review for the Grand Prairie Family Dental and Dr. Khademazad. Dr. Khademazad is not to be trusted. Grand Prairie Family Dental and Dr. Khademazad refused to pay money owed since 10/2010. Even after winning a major court judg[ ]ment in 06/16, we still have[ ] not received a penny of what is owed. Grand Prairie Family Dental and Dr. Khademazad can’t even be trusted with a court order!! Why would you trust him with your health?!

The review was removed by Yelp several months later and there is no evidence that anyone other than Yelp personnel and the parties viewed the post.

After another series of months with the judgment still unpaid, Aidris filed an application for turnover and receivership. A short time later, Khademazad’s attorney initiated settlement negotiations by sending an email to Aidris’s lawyer containing the following language:

[M]y offer is based on Dr. Khademazad’s ability to pay the judgment versus simply filing bankruptcy and starting all over. His ex-wife has already taken him to the cleaners and thus, filing bankruptcy and starting all over can be rather appealing if his back is pushed against the wall. And then, there are the defamation claims arising from the Yelp posting which adversely affected Dr. Khademazad’s practice as well as his reputation. Under Defamation Per Se, Dr. Khademazad does not have to plead and prove special damages and can recover general damages including loss of reputation and mental anguish. [Emphasis added.]

Thereafter, the parties entered into a settlement agreement of Aidris’s claims against Khademazad. Paragraph 4.B. of the agreement contains a broad-form mutual release of claims. It provides, in part:

For and in consideration of the execution of this Mutual Release, and other good and valuable consideration, the receipt and sufficiency of which is hereby acknowledged, [Khademazad] hereby releases, acquits and forever discharge[s] [Aidris], its agents, servants, employees, attorneys and all persons, natural or corporate, in privity with [Aidris], for any and all claims or causes of action of any kind whatsoever at common law, statutory, or otherwise which [Khademazad] has or might have, known or unknown, now existing or that might arise hereafter, directly or indirectly attributable to the transaction or occurrences made the basis of this lawsuit, it being intended to release all claims of any kind which [Khademazad] might have against those hereby released, regarding the events which are the subject of this lawsuit, whether asserted in the above captioned suit or not. This release shall not act to prevent enforcement of this agreement in the event of default. [Emphasis added.]

Less than two months after signing the agreement, Khademazad sued Gharavi for libel, libel per se, business disparagement, and negligence. All these claims were based on the single Yelp post in which Gharavi voiced frustration over the unpaid judgment.

Gharavi moved for summary judgment on various grounds. Among them was Gharavi’s contention that the release barred Khademazad’s claims.

The motion went undecided and a one-day bench trial followed. Thereafter, the trial judge entered a judgment for Khademazad on all of his claims, awarding Khademazad monetary damages of approximately $1.2 million. Gharavi timely appealed ….

Khademazad agreed to release all claims “directly or indirectly attributable to the transaction or occurrences made the basis of this lawsuit,” namely Khademazad’s failure to pay for services Aidris provided and the resulting lawsuit. The benefit of the release extends to Aidris’s “agents, servants, employees, attorneys and all persons, natural or corporate, in privity with [Aidris],” and the parties agree that Gharavi is an agent of Aidris.

Without question, the Yelp review was, if not directly, then indirectly attributable to Khademazad’s failure to pay for Aidris’s services and the lawsuit that followed. {The Yelp review mentions both the non-payment and the lawsuit.} Khademazad’s claims here are clearly within the subject matter of the release. Moreover, the libel, disparagement, and negligence claims asserted against Gharavi were specifically contemplated by the parties during their negotiations to resolve Aidris’s claims against Khademazad….

We conclude that Khademazad’s claims against Gharavi are barred by the release. We reverse the trial court’s judgment and render judgment that Khademazad take nothing.

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Science-Based Policy Means Decriminalizing Sex Work, Say Hundreds of Researchers

ptsphotoshotfour067152

Social scientists ask Biden administration to embrace sex worker rights. In an open letter to President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, a group of more than 250 researchers and scientists are calling for changes to the way that this country treats sex work and those engaged in it. Most prominently, the letter—which comes in conjunction with International Sex Worker Rights Day, March 3—says that sex work ought to be decriminalized.

“We decided to launch this campaign because, for too long, policies regarding sex work have been largely evidence-free, and we saw an urgent need to intervene in the debate by re-linking scientific research with public policy,” said George Washington University sociology professor Ronald Weitzer in a statement. For years, Weitzer’s work has tackled questions of police abuse and shone a light on the shoddy statistics and secret agendas underlying activist efforts to rebrand all sex work as human trafficking.

Weitzer is one of four organizers of the Scientists for Sex Worker Rights campaign, along with Angela Jones of Farmingdale State College and Barb Brents and Kate Hausbeck Korgan of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. All four have doctorates in sociology and have published books and/or peer-reviewed articles on various facets of sex work and sex trafficking.

Drawing on empirical research from around the world, the letter makes the case that decriminalizing prostitution must be part of the broader criminal justice reform movement in the U.S.

“The data clearly shows that criminalizing consensual adult sexual services causes severe harms, which fall mainly on the most marginalized groups—women, people of color, transgender and non-binary workers, workers’ with disabilities, and economically marginalized workers,” said Jones. This criminalization “does not prevent or minimize violence or abuse ostensibly identified with human trafficking.”

As we’ve been detailing for years here at Reason, this war on sex work not only harms people choosing to engage in prostitution but leaves little room for actually helping victims of violence and sexual exploitation.

Almost 90 percent of the feds’ “trafficking prevention” budget has gone to arresting adults engaging in consensual sex work, say the researchers.

This is despite the fact that prostitution alone isn’t even a federal crime.

In addition to calling on cities and states to decriminalize prostitution, Biden and Harris can demonstrate their alleged “commitment to science-driven policy” by supporting a Senate bill to study the effects of FOSTA—the 2018 law criminalizing online ads for sex work—with an eye toward FOSTA’s repeal, the scientists say. Preliminary evidence suggests it has been disastrous for sex worker safety (in addition to having a chilling effect on all manner of sexuality-related content online).

Biden and Harris should also “commit to protecting the First Amendment and free speech” by opposing the bipartisan-supported Stop Internet Sexual Exploitation Act (SISEA) and Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham’s EARN IT Act, states the letter.

“We have devoted our careers to the study of sex work, sexual commerce, trafficking, feminism, and law, and we are anxious to assist our nation in developing and advocating for policies that protect the rights, privacy, and autonomy of workers in the sex trade,” the researchers conclude. “Doing so will promote public health and harm reduction while decreasing violence and the powerful social stigma that sex workers face every day in the United States and around the world. This is a social justice and human rights issue, and we urge you to act.”

FREE MINDS

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is joining the fight against making nonprofit organizations disclose their donors. On Tuesday, the ACLU “filed an amicus brief with the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, the Human Rights Campaign, and PEN America urging the Supreme Court to protect the privacy rights of non-profit donors across progressive and conservative organizations,” the group announced in a press release.

The case, Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Becerra, challenges California’s blanket requirement for nonprofits to disclose their IRS Form 990 Schedule B documents, which identify their top donors. The groups argue that the rule violates the First Amendment right to associational privacy. Nonprofits’ Schedule B forms contain the names and addresses of major donors, highly sensitive information. Although California purports to keep this information confidential, California has repeatedly failed to keep the information confidential. Recently, for example, California inadvertently published more than 1,700 Schedule B forms on a public website over a period of many years.

FREE MARKETS

Parler is dismissing its lawsuit against Amazon:

QUICK HITS

• Texas and Mississippi are moving to quickly end all mask mandates and lockdown orders.

• Newly confirmed Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo wants to destroy Section 230:

• A new bill proposed in Massachusetts would decriminalize prostitution and expunge the records of “marijuana and prostitution-related arrests, detentions, conviction and incarceration.”

• Though a lot of folks are conveniently silent about it now, “the Biden administration has continued to use a Trump-era border policy to turn back immigrants at the border, including Haitians, much to the chagrin of advocates who point out that it effectively seals the border,” Buzzfeed reports.

• The Washington Post covers Democrats’ delusional economic plans.

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/381i9Yb
via IFTTT

Texas Court Reverses $1.2 Million Libel Decision Based on Yelp Review Complaining About Earlier Unpaid Judgment

From Gharavi v. Khademazad, decided Friday by the Texas Fifth Court of Appeals (Dallas), in an opinion by Justice Ken Molberg joined by Justices Amanda Reichek and Erin Nowell:

Sean Gharavi appeals from a judgment of the trial court following a bench trial that awarded Behrooz Khademazad monetary damages in his libel, libel per se, business disparagement and negligence suit against Gharavi. Because we conclude Khademazad released his claims against Gharavi, we reverse the trial court’s judgment and render judgment that Khademazad take nothing….

Khademazad hired Gharavi’s company, Aidris, Inc., to develop an online marketing strategy to promote Khademazad’s dental business. When Khademazad failed to pay for the services, Aidris instituted arbitration proceedings to recover what it was owed. The arbitrator found in Aidris’s favor. Khademazad refused to voluntarily pay the arbitration award. The award was thereafter reduced to a judgment in Tarrant County. Khademazad refused to pay the trial court judgment.

Some seven months later, Gharavi, in his frustration over the judgment having not been paid, posted the following Yelp review on Khademazad’s dental practice site:

This is a review for the Grand Prairie Family Dental and Dr. Khademazad. Dr. Khademazad is not to be trusted. Grand Prairie Family Dental and Dr. Khademazad refused to pay money owed since 10/2010. Even after winning a major court judg[ ]ment in 06/16, we still have[ ] not received a penny of what is owed. Grand Prairie Family Dental and Dr. Khademazad can’t even be trusted with a court order!! Why would you trust him with your health?!

The review was removed by Yelp several months later and there is no evidence that anyone other than Yelp personnel and the parties viewed the post.

After another series of months with the judgment still unpaid, Aidris filed an application for turnover and receivership. A short time later, Khademazad’s attorney initiated settlement negotiations by sending an email to Aidris’s lawyer containing the following language:

[M]y offer is based on Dr. Khademazad’s ability to pay the judgment versus simply filing bankruptcy and starting all over. His ex-wife has already taken him to the cleaners and thus, filing bankruptcy and starting all over can be rather appealing if his back is pushed against the wall. And then, there are the defamation claims arising from the Yelp posting which adversely affected Dr. Khademazad’s practice as well as his reputation. Under Defamation Per Se, Dr. Khademazad does not have to plead and prove special damages and can recover general damages including loss of reputation and mental anguish. [Emphasis added.]

Thereafter, the parties entered into a settlement agreement of Aidris’s claims against Khademazad. Paragraph 4.B. of the agreement contains a broad-form mutual release of claims. It provides, in part:

For and in consideration of the execution of this Mutual Release, and other good and valuable consideration, the receipt and sufficiency of which is hereby acknowledged, [Khademazad] hereby releases, acquits and forever discharge[s] [Aidris], its agents, servants, employees, attorneys and all persons, natural or corporate, in privity with [Aidris], for any and all claims or causes of action of any kind whatsoever at common law, statutory, or otherwise which [Khademazad] has or might have, known or unknown, now existing or that might arise hereafter, directly or indirectly attributable to the transaction or occurrences made the basis of this lawsuit, it being intended to release all claims of any kind which [Khademazad] might have against those hereby released, regarding the events which are the subject of this lawsuit, whether asserted in the above captioned suit or not. This release shall not act to prevent enforcement of this agreement in the event of default. [Emphasis added.]

Less than two months after signing the agreement, Khademazad sued Gharavi for libel, libel per se, business disparagement, and negligence. All these claims were based on the single Yelp post in which Gharavi voiced frustration over the unpaid judgment.

Gharavi moved for summary judgment on various grounds. Among them was Gharavi’s contention that the release barred Khademazad’s claims.

The motion went undecided and a one-day bench trial followed. Thereafter, the trial judge entered a judgment for Khademazad on all of his claims, awarding Khademazad monetary damages of approximately $1.2 million. Gharavi timely appealed ….

Khademazad agreed to release all claims “directly or indirectly attributable to the transaction or occurrences made the basis of this lawsuit,” namely Khademazad’s failure to pay for services Aidris provided and the resulting lawsuit. The benefit of the release extends to Aidris’s “agents, servants, employees, attorneys and all persons, natural or corporate, in privity with [Aidris],” and the parties agree that Gharavi is an agent of Aidris.

Without question, the Yelp review was, if not directly, then indirectly attributable to Khademazad’s failure to pay for Aidris’s services and the lawsuit that followed. {The Yelp review mentions both the non-payment and the lawsuit.} Khademazad’s claims here are clearly within the subject matter of the release. Moreover, the libel, disparagement, and negligence claims asserted against Gharavi were specifically contemplated by the parties during their negotiations to resolve Aidris’s claims against Khademazad….

We conclude that Khademazad’s claims against Gharavi are barred by the release. We reverse the trial court’s judgment and render judgment that Khademazad take nothing.

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Knee Defenders and Virtual Laps—Part 2

Credit: Wikimedia.


This post is adapted from our new book, Mine!: How the Hidden Rules of Ownership Control Our Lives, available March 2. To learn more about the book, visit minethebook.com.

Yesterday, in Part 1, we introduced the Knee Defender and the three conflicting ownership stories—attachment, possession, and first-in-time—that passengers use in high-altitude fights over inches of personal space.

Why are these conflicts breaking out now? There never used to be rage around reclining. Until recently, airline seats had greater pitch, or space between seats—enough both for reclining and for lowering the tray table. No one thought to ask who controlled the space because it didn’t much matter. But airlines have been shrinking the pitch in economy class, down from 35 inches not that long ago to just 28 inches on some planes.

There’s a lot at stake for the airlines: one inch of pitch saved per row can add up to six extra seats per flight to sell. To grow profits, airlines are squeezing ever more passengers inside a fixed steel tube—at the same time that people are growing bigger and tray tables have become precious computer stands. The stakes are high for passengers as well. In the COVID-19 era, each inch of personal space can feel like a life-or-death matter. So, passengers get angry at each other. But why aren’t they angry at the airline?

It turns out neither Beach nor Williams really owns the wedge of reclining space. The airlines do. And they are savvy pros at ownership design. As Ira Goldman, the inventor of the Knee Defender (whose website traffic increased five-hundred-fold after the Denver flight incident), described: “What the airlines are doing is, they’re selling me space for my legs, and they’re selling you the space—if you’re sitting in front of me—they’re selling you the same space to recline. So they’re selling one space to two people.”

Can the airlines do that?

Yes. In 2018 the Federal Aviation Administration declined to regulate airplane seats, leaving their design to the airlines. In turn, the airlines use a secret weapon that lets them sell the same space twice on every flight. The weapon is strategic ambiguity, a sophisticated tool of ownership design. Most airlines do have a rule—the passenger with the button can lean back. But they keep it quiet. Flight attendants don’t announce it.

Ambiguity works to the airlines’ advantage. When ownership is unclear—and it’s unclear far more often than you might imagine—people mostly fall back on politeness and good manners. For decades, airlines have counted on high-altitude etiquette to defuse conflicting claims. That’s why Delta CEO Bastian said you should “ask if it’s okay” to recline. Passengers negotiate among themselves as they angle ahead in line, nudge elbows over shared armrests, and jostle for overhead bins. Money rarely changes hands. (One study, though, suggests about three-quarters of passengers would agree not to recline if the person behind offered to buy them a drink or snack.)

But as airlines continue to shrink the pitch, unspoken rules over the front-to-back squeeze are breaking down and everyone ends up looking unreasonable. Goldman saw ownership ambiguity as a business opportunity and created a technological solution. The problem, though, is that a unilateral move to lock the seat violates customs of politeness. It feels like taking something without asking.

The Knee Defender may seem like a silly novelty item, but it reflects one of the great engines for innovation in our society: as valued resources become scarcer, people compete more intensely to impose their preferred ownership rule, and entrepreneurs find ways to profit.

In post #3 tomorrow, we show how the Knee Defender story explains everything from how the West was settled a century ago to battles today over who owns our online data.

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Knee Defenders and Virtual Laps—Part 2

Credit: Wikimedia.


This post is adapted from our new book, Mine!: How the Hidden Rules of Ownership Control Our Lives, available March 2. To learn more about the book, visit minethebook.com.

Yesterday, in Part 1, we introduced the Knee Defender and the three conflicting ownership stories—attachment, possession, and first-in-time—that passengers use in high-altitude fights over inches of personal space.

Why are these conflicts breaking out now? There never used to be rage around reclining. Until recently, airline seats had greater pitch, or space between seats—enough both for reclining and for lowering the tray table. No one thought to ask who controlled the space because it didn’t much matter. But airlines have been shrinking the pitch in economy class, down from 35 inches not that long ago to just 28 inches on some planes.

There’s a lot at stake for the airlines: one inch of pitch saved per row can add up to six extra seats per flight to sell. To grow profits, airlines are squeezing ever more passengers inside a fixed steel tube—at the same time that people are growing bigger and tray tables have become precious computer stands. The stakes are high for passengers as well. In the COVID-19 era, each inch of personal space can feel like a life-or-death matter. So, passengers get angry at each other. But why aren’t they angry at the airline?

It turns out neither Beach nor Williams really owns the wedge of reclining space. The airlines do. And they are savvy pros at ownership design. As Ira Goldman, the inventor of the Knee Defender (whose website traffic increased five-hundred-fold after the Denver flight incident), described: “What the airlines are doing is, they’re selling me space for my legs, and they’re selling you the space—if you’re sitting in front of me—they’re selling you the same space to recline. So they’re selling one space to two people.”

Can the airlines do that?

Yes. In 2018 the Federal Aviation Administration declined to regulate airplane seats, leaving their design to the airlines. In turn, the airlines use a secret weapon that lets them sell the same space twice on every flight. The weapon is strategic ambiguity, a sophisticated tool of ownership design. Most airlines do have a rule—the passenger with the button can lean back. But they keep it quiet. Flight attendants don’t announce it.

Ambiguity works to the airlines’ advantage. When ownership is unclear—and it’s unclear far more often than you might imagine—people mostly fall back on politeness and good manners. For decades, airlines have counted on high-altitude etiquette to defuse conflicting claims. That’s why Delta CEO Bastian said you should “ask if it’s okay” to recline. Passengers negotiate among themselves as they angle ahead in line, nudge elbows over shared armrests, and jostle for overhead bins. Money rarely changes hands. (One study, though, suggests about three-quarters of passengers would agree not to recline if the person behind offered to buy them a drink or snack.)

But as airlines continue to shrink the pitch, unspoken rules over the front-to-back squeeze are breaking down and everyone ends up looking unreasonable. Goldman saw ownership ambiguity as a business opportunity and created a technological solution. The problem, though, is that a unilateral move to lock the seat violates customs of politeness. It feels like taking something without asking.

The Knee Defender may seem like a silly novelty item, but it reflects one of the great engines for innovation in our society: as valued resources become scarcer, people compete more intensely to impose their preferred ownership rule, and entrepreneurs find ways to profit.

In post #3 tomorrow, we show how the Knee Defender story explains everything from how the West was settled a century ago to battles today over who owns our online data.

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/3r7FXRD
via IFTTT