GOP Hawks Are Turning Out for Biden

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Former Secretary of State Colin Powell was the surprise Republican who popped up at Tuesday night’s edition of the Democratic National Convention, where he delivered a blistering assessment of President Donald Trump’s foreign policy and endorsed Democratic nominee Joe Biden.

“With Joe Biden in the White House, you will never doubt that he will stand with our friends and stand up to our adversaries,” Powell said. “He will restore America’s leadership in the world and restore the alliances we need to address the dangers that threaten our nation.”

As if the message wasn’t clear enough, the DNC followed up with a short video retrospective about the cross-aisle friendship between Biden and the late Republican Sen. John McCain.

It’s not all that surprising that some George W. Bush-era Republicans have crossed over to Biden’s side this time around: Trump’s victory in the 2016 Republican primary was a repudiation of the Bush era of Republican politics—a time when Powell and McCain were key players in national politics—and the ill-advised, intractable wars that were launched during it. The Trump era has caused many problems for the Republican Party and for America as a whole, but one of the few good things to come of the last four years has been the exile of the neoconservatives to the political wilderness.

And yet, Trump’s victory over the architects of America’s early 2000s foreign policy disasters seems hollow. He largely failed to follow through on the mandate he was handed by the voters who chose him over his more interventionist opponents in both the Republican primary and the general election.

It’s true that Trump hasn’t launched any new wars. But the number of drone strikes conducted by the U.S. military has risen under his watch. He sent more troops into Afghanistan and is only now drawing those levels back down to where they were when he took office. In a memorable interview with Axios‘s Jonathan Swan a few weeks ago, Trump could offer few specifics about when he would finish off a long-planned withdrawal from America’s longest war. When pressed to say how many troops would remain in Afghanistan on Election Day, Trump said “probably anywhere from four [thousand] to 5,000.”

Instead of bringing the troops home, he’s merely shuffled them around the Middle East with little apparent purpose other than occasionally suggesting that America ought to seize the region’s oil supply.

Trump’s fans say he has reoriented huge amounts of America’s foreign policy, but how much of that is beneficial or lasting? Yes, Trump has picked some silly fights with European leaders and nudged them to contribute a larger share toward NATO.

But everywhere else, Trump has squandered this opportunity. His confrontation with China has imposed millions of dollars of new taxes on American consumers and businesses, failed to produce meaningful changes in U.S.-China trade policy, and potentially set the world’s two biggest economies on course for a new cold war. Surely there must be a more skillful—or at least a less economically damaging way—to oppose China’s illiberal behavior at home and abroad. If only Trump hadn’t alienated the very allies that might make a different approach possible.

Anyone who wants to see America take a less militant approach to the world’s problems shouldn’t be cheering for neocons to build a new nest within the Democratic Party. And the fact that Trump, who has at times seemed legitimately appalled by some of the horrors of war, wasted four years by failing to undo the mistakes Powell and his friends made is a tragedy.

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Big-Spending Biden

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Which presidential candidate will bankrupt America first, Donald Trump or Joe Biden?

Last year, we compared the costs of the leading Democratic candidates’ promises. At that time, Biden, to his credit, proposed the least new spending. Kamala Harris promised the most. She wanted to add $4.2 trillion to America’s debt. Her lavish promises didn’t win her supporters; she dropped out soon after. But now she’s Biden’s running mate, and Biden promises to spend more.

That’s unusual.

Historically, Democrats moved left during the primaries, and then back toward the center once nominated. Not this time. Biden’s people met with Bernie Sanders’ staff and concocted a grotesque orgy of spending. That’s the subject of my video this week.

“Joe Biden has been lurching to the left on federal spending for years, first as a senator, then vice president, now as a presidential candidate,” says Pete Sepp, president of the National Taxpayers Union. “Tax, spend and borrow is going to bankrupt the nation.”

Originally, Biden proposed $170 billion a year in new “climate” spending. Now, he wants $500 billion. It will go for things like “green infrastructure … more efficient windows … 500,000 charging stations for electric cars.”

“This is the way that governments grow at the expense of the American people,” says Sepp.

I push back. “So they spend it. So what? We’ll have more infrastructure.”

“What we won’t have is infrastructure that’s efficient or effective,” Sepp replies. “We will have holes in the ground and mass transit that people won’t ride.”

Biden wants to spend $77.5 billion more to pay caregivers for children and the elderly.

“A good thing?” I suggest.

I like Sepp’s answer. “Why not leave more money in people’s pockets … so they can afford to provide care for their families? We as taxpayers know better how to take care of our families and ourselves than some distant government.”

Biden wants $64 billion more for housing subsidies, saying, “Housing should be a right.”

“A right to housing” may sound reasonable. So might a right to food, clothing, college, health care, etc.

After all, the Bill of Rights did grant Americans a right to free speech, free exercise of religion and the right to keep and bear arms.

But there’s a key difference. Those rights mean: Government must leave us alone.

But a “right” to housing—or college, health care, etc. means government forcibly takes money from some Americans and gives it to others. That’s very different.

As I write, Biden’s new spending proposals total $1.2 trillion a year.

“We can’t afford it!” complains Sepp. “Sooner or later, every nation faces a reckoning. Joe Biden’s policies, if enacted in full, draw that reckoning even closer.”

I say to Sepp, “We’ve been taxing and spending and borrowing, and except for COVID, we were doing well!”

“Deficits and debt don’t matter until, suddenly, spectacularly, they do!” he replies. “No one ever knows when doomsday happens until it already has. Ask the folks in Greece. Ask the folks in Weimar, Germany.”

The Weimar Republic printed so much money that the price of bread rose from 250 to 200,000 million marks. People brought wheelbarrows full of money with them when wanted to buy something.

Will it happen in America? No one knows. But eventually, we’ll have to pay our debts. A rubber band stretches and stretches but at some point, it breaks.

Our national debt is now a record $26 trillion.

“Deficits and debt destroy economic growth,” says Sepp. “It’s going to hurt the American people. It’s coming.”

Next week, I’ll compare Biden’s spending plans with President Trump’s.

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Joe Biden Does Not Understand the Second Amendment

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When it overturned California’s 10-round magazine limit last Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit emphasized what Americans commonly do when they exercise their constitutional right to armed self-defense. Joe Biden, by contrast, thinks the relevant question is how many shells Americans are allowed to have in their shotguns when they hunt migratory birds.

Those two approaches represent the difference between judges who take the Second Amendment seriously and politicians who only pay lip service to it. Biden’s presidential campaign, which promises a raft of new gun restrictions while barely nodding toward the Constitution, shows the extent to which the right to keep and bear arms has become a partisan issue, a development that does not bode well for civil liberties.

The Biden campaign’s website mentions the Second Amendment just once, saying, “It’s within our grasp to end our gun violence epidemic and respect the Second Amendment, which is limited.” Even that grudging acknowledgment is more than the Democratic Party’s platform offers.

After promising to respect the Second Amendment in 2004, 2008, and 2012, the Democrats erased the constitutional provision from their 2016 platform, although they did mention “the rights of responsible gun owners.” This year’s platform omits that phrase as well.

“I respect the Second Amendment,” Biden insisted last March while arguing with a Detroit autoworker about gun control. But the evidence he offered was not exactly reassuring.

“I have a shotgun,” Biden said. “My sons hunt.” He notably omitted any mention of the right to self-defense, which the Supreme Court has recognized as the Second Amendment’s “central component,” or of handguns, which the justices described as the “quintessential self-defense weapon.”

In explaining his plan to ban “high-capacity magazines,” Biden also talks about hunting. “Federal law prevents hunters from hunting migratory game birds with more than three shells in their shotgun,” his campaign says. “That means our federal law does more to protect ducks than children.”

The three-round limit suggested by that non sequitur would be clearly unconstitutional, effectively banning all semi-automatic firearms and revolvers. But judging from an expired federal law that Biden supported, he would be more generous, allowing magazines with capacities of up to 10 rounds—the same as the limit set by California, which made it a crime to manufacture, transfer, or even possess “large-capacity magazines” (LCMs).

As the 9th Circuit noted, that law covered half of the magazines owned by Americans—115 million out of 230 million, according to one estimate. LCMs come standard with some of the most popular firearms sold in the United States, including “Glocks, Berettas, and other handguns that are staples of self-defense.”

Given that context, LCMs clearly are not the sort of “unusual” arms that the Supreme Court has said fall outside the scope of the Second Amendment. To the contrary, they are “in common use” for lawful purposes, the test the Court has set for arms that Americans have a constitutional right to own.

California argued that no one really needs LCMs for self-defense. Millions of Americans clearly disagree, and so do police officers, who were exempted from the state ban.

U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez, whose 2019 decision blocking enforcement of California’s law was upheld by the 9th Circuit last week, noted that the rationale for the ban hinged on a small subset of “extremely rare” crimes: cases where the need to switch magazines creates a “critical pause” during which a mass shooter’s victims might overpower him or escape. For gun owners confronted in their homes or businesses by violent criminals—a situation much more common than mass shootings—that “critical pause” can become a “lethal pause,” Benitez observed.

In any case, the 9th Circuit concluded, the law’s speculative benefits cannot possibly justify its sweeping breadth. “California’s near-categorical ban of LCMs strikes at the core of the Second Amendment,” it said.

Biden does not merely disagree with that analysis. The evidence suggests he does not even understand it.

© Copyright 2020 by Creators Syndicate Inc.

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Joe Biden Does Not Understand the Second Amendment

Joe-Biden-campaign-photo

When it overturned California’s 10-round magazine limit last Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit emphasized what Americans commonly do when they exercise their constitutional right to armed self-defense. Joe Biden, by contrast, thinks the relevant question is how many shells Americans are allowed to have in their shotguns when they hunt migratory birds.

Those two approaches represent the difference between judges who take the Second Amendment seriously and politicians who only pay lip service to it. Biden’s presidential campaign, which promises a raft of new gun restrictions while barely nodding toward the Constitution, shows the extent to which the right to keep and bear arms has become a partisan issue, a development that does not bode well for civil liberties.

The Biden campaign’s website mentions the Second Amendment just once, saying, “It’s within our grasp to end our gun violence epidemic and respect the Second Amendment, which is limited.” Even that grudging acknowledgment is more than the Democratic Party’s platform offers.

After promising to respect the Second Amendment in 2004, 2008, and 2012, the Democrats erased the constitutional provision from their 2016 platform, although they did mention “the rights of responsible gun owners.” This year’s platform omits that phrase as well.

“I respect the Second Amendment,” Biden insisted last March while arguing with a Detroit autoworker about gun control. But the evidence he offered was not exactly reassuring.

“I have a shotgun,” Biden said. “My sons hunt.” He notably omitted any mention of the right to self-defense, which the Supreme Court has recognized as the Second Amendment’s “central component,” or of handguns, which the justices described as the “quintessential self-defense weapon.”

In explaining his plan to ban “high-capacity magazines,” Biden also talks about hunting. “Federal law prevents hunters from hunting migratory game birds with more than three shells in their shotgun,” his campaign says. “That means our federal law does more to protect ducks than children.”

The three-round limit suggested by that non sequitur would be clearly unconstitutional, effectively banning all semi-automatic firearms and revolvers. But judging from an expired federal law that Biden supported, he would be more generous, allowing magazines with capacities of up to 10 rounds—the same as the limit set by California, which made it a crime to manufacture, transfer, or even possess “large-capacity magazines” (LCMs).

As the 9th Circuit noted, that law covered half of the magazines owned by Americans—115 million out of 230 million, according to one estimate. LCMs come standard with some of the most popular firearms sold in the United States, including “Glocks, Berettas, and other handguns that are staples of self-defense.”

Given that context, LCMs clearly are not the sort of “unusual” arms that the Supreme Court has said fall outside the scope of the Second Amendment. To the contrary, they are “in common use” for lawful purposes, the test the Court has set for arms that Americans have a constitutional right to own.

California argued that no one really needs LCMs for self-defense. Millions of Americans clearly disagree, and so do police officers, who were exempted from the state ban.

U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez, whose 2019 decision blocking enforcement of California’s law was upheld by the 9th Circuit last week, noted that the rationale for the ban hinged on a small subset of “extremely rare” crimes: cases where the need to switch magazines creates a “critical pause” during which a mass shooter’s victims might overpower him or escape. For gun owners confronted in their homes or businesses by violent criminals—a situation much more common than mass shootings—that “critical pause” can become a “lethal pause,” Benitez observed.

In any case, the 9th Circuit concluded, the law’s speculative benefits cannot possibly justify its sweeping breadth. “California’s near-categorical ban of LCMs strikes at the core of the Second Amendment,” it said.

Biden does not merely disagree with that analysis. The evidence suggests he does not even understand it.

© Copyright 2020 by Creators Syndicate Inc.

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Does This Video Show a Cop Aiding and Abetting George Floyd’s Murder?

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The lawyers representing former Minneapolis police officer Tou Thao, who is accused of aiding and abetting the second-degree murder of George Floyd, argue that his role in the May 25 incident, which triggered nationwide protests, was too peripheral to justify that charge. Newly released video from Thao’s body camera sheds light on that claim, showing that he stubbornly dismissed the concerns of increasingly alarmed bystanders, repeatedly declined to intervene on Floyd’s behalf or check on his welfare, and physically prevented pedestrians from approaching Floyd as he was pinned to the pavement in a prone position.

The 22-minute video begins as Thao, who was hired by the Minneapolis Police Department in 2012, and his partner, Derek Chauvin, hired in 2001, arrive at Cup Foods, the store where Floyd allegedly tried to make a purchase with a counterfeit $20 bill. The arresting officers, Thomas Lane and J. Alexander Kueng, both new to the police department, are trying to force a panicked and resistant Floyd, who says he is claustrophobic and asks to ride in the front seat, into their squad car. “I’m not a bad guy,” he says. “Please….I can’t breathe.”

Floyd tumbles or is pulled out of the car onto the street, saying, “I’m gonna lay on the ground.” After some more struggling, that is where he ends up, handcuffed and face down as Chauvin kneels on Floyd’s neck. Lane and Kueng help keep him down by applying pressure to his legs and back, respectively. “I can’t breathe,” Floyd says over and over, crying for his mother. “Please….I’m about to die.” During the struggle and Floyd’s subsequent restraint, the three officers repeatedly dismiss his complaints that he is having trouble breathing, saying the fact that he is still talking shows he is getting plenty of air.

Thao—who initially seems to make light of the situation, saying “this is why you don’t do drugs, kids”—echoes his colleagues’ assurance as he confronts six to 10 onlookers, several of whom express concern about Floyd. “He’s talking, so he’s fine,” Thao tells them.

“He ain’t fine,” replies a bystander who says he trained at the police academy, suggesting that Chauvin’s “jiu-jitsu” maneuver is obstructing Floyd’s breathing. “That’s bullshit, bro. You’re fucking stopping his breathing right there, bro.”

Thao reiterates that “he’s talking,” saying, “It’s hard to talk if you’re not breathing.” The bystander says the cops should “get him off the ground” and berates Thao for failing to intervene.

“Is he talking now?” a woman who is recording the encounter on her cellphone asks about five minutes after Chauvin began kneeling on Floyd’s neck. “Look at him. Bro, get the fuck off of him.” The bystander who was the first to speak up lays into Thao again for doing nothing. “You’re a bum for that, bro,” he says, asking for Thao’s badge number. When the guy steps into the street, Thao tells him to get back on the sidewalk. He gives the same order to other bystanders who step off the sidewalk.

A woman approaches Thao, identifying herself as a Minneapolis firefighter. “You should check on him then,” says the man who spoke up earlier. “He’s not responsive.” Thao orders the firefighter off the street. “Does he have a pulse?” she asks, standing on the sidewalk. “Check for a pulse. Let me see a pulse.” The man who asked for Thao’s badge number reiterates that suggestion. “The man ain’t moved yet,” he notes. The two of them become increasingly insistent. “Check his pulse right now and tell me what it is!” says the firefighter.

“I’m busy trying to deal with you guys right now,” Thao says. When the son of the store’s owners steps into the street, worried about Floyd’s condition, Thao pushes him back. Thao responds to the heated criticism of his inaction by saying, “If that makes you feel good about yourself, go ahead.”

According to the initial criminal complaint against Chauvin, he kneeled on Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes, twice rejecting Lane’s suggestion that they roll him onto his side. After five minutes, Floyd “stopped moving.” A minute later, “the video appears to show Mr. Floyd ceasing to breathe or speak.” Even after Kueng checked Floyd’s pulse and said he could not find one, Chauvin remained in position, finally removing his knee two minutes later as an ambulance arrived.

It’s not clear exactly how much of this Thao directly observed. But he had ample notice that the force used by his colleagues could prove deadly. Instead of taking that concern seriously, he, like Lane and Kueng, deferred to Chauvin, a 19-year veteran who was the senior officer on the scene.

Is that enough to convict Thao of aiding and abetting second-degree murder (or, alternatively, aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter, a lesser charge against Chauvin)? Thao’s lawyers argue that he did not know the other officers were committing a crime, let alone take any actions “to further commission of that crime.” They presumably will say he was so focused on keeping the bystanders under control that he was in no position to make an independent judgment about the legality of the other officers’ conduct.

According to the Associated Press, Thao “told investigators that his job was securing the scene and that he couldn’t ‘be in two places at once.'” He described himself as a “human traffic cone,” and he showed about as much initiative.

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Does This Video Show a Cop Aiding and Abetting George Floyd’s Murder?

George-Floyd-bystanders-YouTube

The lawyers representing former Minneapolis police officer Tou Thao, who is accused of aiding and abetting the second-degree murder of George Floyd, argue that his role in the May 25 incident, which triggered nationwide protests, was too peripheral to justify that charge. Newly released video from Thao’s body camera sheds light on that claim, showing that he stubbornly dismissed the concerns of increasingly alarmed bystanders, repeatedly declined to intervene on Floyd’s behalf or check on his welfare, and physically prevented pedestrians from approaching Floyd as he was pinned to the pavement in a prone position.

The 22-minute video begins as Thao, who was hired by the Minneapolis Police Department in 2012, and his partner, Derek Chauvin, hired in 2001, arrive at Cup Foods, the store where Floyd allegedly tried to make a purchase with a counterfeit $20 bill. The arresting officers, Thomas Lane and J. Alexander Kueng, both new to the police department, are trying to force a panicked and resistant Floyd, who says he is claustrophobic and asks to ride in the front seat, into their squad car. “I’m not a bad guy,” he says. “Please….I can’t breathe.”

Floyd tumbles or is pulled out of the car onto the street, saying, “I’m gonna lay on the ground.” After some more struggling, that is where he ends up, handcuffed and face down as Chauvin kneels on Floyd’s neck. Lane and Kueng help keep him down by applying pressure to his legs and back, respectively. “I can’t breathe,” Floyd says over and over, crying for his mother. “Please….I’m about to die.” During the struggle and Floyd’s subsequent restraint, the three officers repeatedly dismiss his complaints that he is having trouble breathing, saying the fact that he is still talking shows he is getting plenty of air.

Thao—who initially seems to make light of the situation, saying “this is why you don’t do drugs, kids”—echoes his colleagues’ assurance as he confronts six to 10 onlookers, several of whom express concern about Floyd. “He’s talking, so he’s fine,” Thao tells them.

“He ain’t fine,” replies a bystander who says he trained at the police academy, suggesting that Chauvin’s “jiu-jitsu” maneuver is obstructing Floyd’s breathing. “That’s bullshit, bro. You’re fucking stopping his breathing right there, bro.”

Thao reiterates that “he’s talking,” saying, “It’s hard to talk if you’re not breathing.” The bystander says the cops should “get him off the ground” and berates Thao for failing to intervene.

“Is he talking now?” a woman who is recording the encounter on her cellphone asks about five minutes after Chauvin began kneeling on Floyd’s neck. “Look at him. Bro, get the fuck off of him.” The bystander who was the first to speak up lays into Thao again for doing nothing. “You’re a bum for that, bro,” he says, asking for Thao’s badge number. When the guy steps into the street, Thao tells him to get back on the sidewalk. He gives the same order to other bystanders who step off the sidewalk.

A woman approaches Thao, identifying herself as a Minneapolis firefighter. “You should check on him then,” says the man who spoke up earlier. “He’s not responsive.” Thao orders the firefighter off the street. “Does he have a pulse?” she asks, standing on the sidewalk. “Check for a pulse. Let me see a pulse.” The man who asked for Thao’s badge number reiterates that suggestion. “The man ain’t moved yet,” he notes. The two of them become increasingly insistent. “Check his pulse right now and tell me what it is!” says the firefighter.

“I’m busy trying to deal with you guys right now,” Thao says. When the son of the store’s owners steps into the street, worried about Floyd’s condition, Thao pushes him back. Thao responds to the heated criticism of his inaction by saying, “If that makes you feel good about yourself, go ahead.”

According to the initial criminal complaint against Chauvin, he kneeled on Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes, twice rejecting Lane’s suggestion that they roll him onto his side. After five minutes, Floyd “stopped moving.” A minute later, “the video appears to show Mr. Floyd ceasing to breathe or speak.” Even after Kueng checked Floyd’s pulse and said he could not find one, Chauvin remained in position, finally removing his knee two minutes later as an ambulance arrived.

It’s not clear exactly how much of this Thao directly observed. But he had ample notice that the force used by his colleagues could prove deadly. Instead of taking that concern seriously, he, like Lane and Kueng, deferred to Chauvin, a 19-year veteran who was the senior officer on the scene.

Is that enough to convict Thao of aiding and abetting second-degree murder (or, alternatively, aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter, a lesser charge against Chauvin)? Thao’s lawyers argue that he did not know the other officers were committing a crime, let alone take any actions “to further commission of that crime.” They presumably will say he was so focused on keeping the bystanders under control that he was in no position to make an independent judgment about the legality of the other officers’ conduct.

According to the Associated Press, Thao “told investigators that his job was securing the scene and that he couldn’t ‘be in two places at once.'” He described himself as a “human traffic cone,” and he showed about as much initiative.

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How Many Universities Built COVID Potemkin Villages To Lure Students Back To Campus?

Over the past six months, cash-strapped Universities have spent untold amounts of money preparing to bring students back to campus. Colleges established elaborate plans on how student would interact in “pods.” Classrooms were built on tennis courts to ensure there was enough space for learning. Modular housing units were constructed to ensure there was space for quarantining students. Labs dedicated critical resources for rapid-response testing. Intrusive “contact-tracing” apps were mandated, to ensure people did not socialize outside of their pods. Now, after barely a week on campus, COVID-19 outbreaks have come rampant. Campus after campus has shut down. None of these events should be surprising.

May I offer a cynical take? At some point last spring, universities recognized that if they shifted to an all-online model, they would see a drop in enrollment. And quite rationally, they recognized they could not afford that revenue cut. So the universities decided that they would have to prove to the students that there was a plan in place to safely open up campus. And they built these elaborate structures and implemented intricate plans to welcome back students. All of these efforts relied on overwhelmingly rosy assumptions about human behavior–assumptions that are inconsistent with everything we know about how 18-21-year-olds behave. Certainly, some of these universities recognized that if the students broke protocol, there would be a rash of positive tests. But they moved forward anyway.

In hindsight, these expensive efforts look like little more than Potemkin Villages. The universities crafted together fancy marketing plans to put students at ease, and prevent them from withdrawing. Now, students have paid their seat deposits. Tuition has been remitted. With the financials settled, it is far simpler to simply pull the trigger, and shift everyone online.

Last year we saw litigation over tuition rates. I suspect the litigation this term will be far more severe: How many colleges misled students into enrolling, knowing full well that there was no reasonable chance the semester would proceed in person? I would not be surprised if we see some RICO actions. One relevant piece of evidence will be the trigger for closure. That is, how many positive tests would the university be willing to tolerate before shutting down in-person instruction? If that number is non-existent, then the University’s plans were illusory. If that number is too high, then the University’s plan was unrealistic. If that number is too low, then the University never actually planned to keep students on campus for any reasonable period of time. Discovery here will be painful for universities.

In hindsight, perhaps all of that money spent on building Potemkin Villages would have been better used for tuition rebates.

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TANSTAAFL Appears for the First Time in a Court Opinion

From Pizza di Joey, LLC v. Mayor & City Council of Baltimore, decided yesterday by the high court of Maryland, in an opinion by Judge Jonathan Biran:

“There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.”
– adage popularized as the acronym “TANSTAAFL” in The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein (1966)

I leave it to others to decide whether Heinlein would have approved of the holding, which is,

Nobody disputes that mobile vendors add value to Baltimore City. However, the City acted rationally when it balanced the competing interests of mobile vendors and brick-and-mortar restaurants and enacted the 300-foot rule to further its legitimate interest in promoting the vibrancy of its commercial districts. It follows that the Rule does not deprive mobile vendors of their substantive due process and equal protection rights under [the Maryland Constitution]. The Food Trucks affirmatively waived a vagueness challenge to the 300-foot rule, and the circuit court erred in sua sponte enjoining the City from enforcing the Rule as impermissibly vague. In any event, the 300-foot rule is not void for vagueness.

(I’m not counting here a few opinions in which a party or other business entity was called Tanstaafl: a shooting club, a stock trading company, and a summer camp; I also can’t vouch for any opinions, likely state trial court opinions, that might not have made their way onto Westlaw.)

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