Category: reason

Televised Trump talk spreads confusion over U.S. response to coronavirus in Europe. There’s so much noise surrounding COVID-19 right now that it’s hard to know what to make of things. It doesn’t help when the president can’t even get his own policy details straight.

Last night, President Donald Trump announced on TV that the U.S. will suspend travel from some European countries for 30 days. “These restrictions will be adjusted subject to conditions on the ground,” he said from the Oval Office, and “there will be exemptions for Americans who have undergone appropriate screenings.”

But he didn’t just announce this—he massively overstated the extent of his coronavirus containment plan.

The actual plan isn’t deeply worrying. Whether or not it’s a good idea to curb European travel, that hasn’t been one of Trump’s immigration goals, so ulterior motives probably aren’t at work here. And should things get dicey, it’s not like some of the most powerful countries in the world (and longtime American allies and trading partners) will just quietly take an attempt to extend the ban beyond what might be reasonable for public health.

But if you got a different impression from Trump’s talk last night, you can only blame the president for that. Here are some details that got scrambled:

A lot of European countries are excluded from travel restrictions. But that’s not what Trump said in his televised address. He implied that travel restrictions would apply to all European countries except the U.K.

That’s not only a lot more extreme than the real plan; it made it seem like Trump was playing favorites. (The U.K. has been affected by COVID-19 to a similar degree as many countries purportedly included.) That, in turn, made the move seem more ominous.

According to the Department of Homeland Security, however, the ban applies only to Europe’s Schengen Zone, where citizens of member countries (including outbreak-heavy countries such as Italy) are able to travel between one another relatively freely. The area includes a large number of countries (26 officially), but it is not all of Europe. Besides the U.K., it excludes Albania, Belarus, Bosnia, Croatia, Ireland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Turkey, Ukraine, and around a dozen other countries.

Officials “clarified that the new travel restrictions would apply only to most foreign nationals who have been in the ‘Schengen Area’ at any point for 14 days prior to their scheduled arrival to the United States,” reports the AP. “The White House said the zone has the highest number of confirmed COVID-19 cases outside of mainland China.”

The action @POTUS is taking to deny entry to foreign nationals who have been in coronavirus-affected areas will keep Americans safe & save lives. These are not easy decisions but they are required. I will issue guidance within 48 hours outlining details.https://t.co/KYXE7JKswC pic.twitter.com/zgi6r5FoZq

— Acting Secretary Chad Wolf (@DHS_Wolf) March 12, 2020

No trade ban. “These prohibitions will not only apply to the tremendous amount of trade and cargo, but other things as we get approval,” Trump said last night. The White House later clarified that goods and trade were not included in the time-out:

White House has clarified that the Europe ban DOES NOT apply to goods and trade reports @justinsink

— Erik Wasson (@elwasson) March 12, 2020

Coronavirus treatment isn’t free. The president kind of overpromised here:

Trump's claim tonight that health insurers "have agreed to waive all copayments for coronavirus treatments" seems to be news to them.

“For testing. Not for treatment.” a spokesperson for the major insurance lobby AHIP says.

— Sarah Owermohle (@owermohle) March 12, 2020

Meanwhile, the administration is planning a bailout package for hotel, airline, and cruise ship companies. “This package isn’t going to include everything,” Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said Wednesday. “This is round one. We’ll be back for more.”

Trump has also been floating a payroll tax cut, which is something he’s been angling for long before this coronavirus outbreak—which, by the way, the World Health Organization officially declared a pandemic yesterday.

Trump wants a payroll tax cut in response to the coronavirus.

But he wanted one before the coronavirus too. It was a bad idea then, and it's still a bad idea now.https://t.co/pY478AsWu9

— Eric Boehm (@EricBoehm87) March 12, 2020

In other coronavirus news: “Initial hopes that the public health consequences of the new coronavirus would be mild are fading,” reports Reason‘s Ron Bailey:

The delay in rolling out a more comprehensive testing regime means that undiagnosed cases are rising. Estimates vary from a few thousand to as many as 50,000 infections among Americans.

At a congressional hearing [Wednesday] afternoon, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, suggested that COVID-19 is is considerably more dangerous than run-of-the-mill flu. He observed, “The flu has a mortality rate of 0.1 percent. This has a mortality rate of 10 times that. That’s the reason I want to emphasize we have to stay ahead of the game in preventing this.”

And “due to red tape, the coronavirus outbreak in the U.S. will be worse than it should have been,” Bailey points out.

Schools around the U.S. continue to close, a slew of state governors are considering or enacting bans on big events, and the quarantining situation in some other countries, especially Italy, continues to get more intense.

“Although it seems unlikely that the United States would copy either China’s approach or the milder but still draconian Italian model, the extent of state and federal quarantine powers is surprisingly unsettled,” notes Reason‘s Jacob Sullum.

FREE MINDS

A man in London “has become the second person in the world to be cured of HIV,” the BBC reports. “Adam Castillejo is still free of the virus more than 30 months after stopping anti-retroviral therapy.”

Castillejo was treated with stem cells as part of treatment for cancer. An article published this week in The Lancet has more details.

FREE MARKETS

Can cops destroy your home for no good reason and then refuse to cover the damage? That’s the issue at the center of a new Institute for Justice (IJ) case. Writes IJ Senior Attorney Robert McNamara:

When our client Shaniz West came home to find her house surrounded by local police looking for her ex-boyfriend, she did what the government probably hopes all citizens would do. She told them the truth (her ex wasn’t there) but gave them permission to go inside to look for themselves.

The problem is that they didn’t go inside—at least, not for a long time. Instead, they decided to besiege the house, repeatedly firing tear-gas grenades and destroying walls, ceilings, and essentially everything Shaniz owned. At the end of the siege, the police discovered what Shaniz had already told them: The ex-boyfriend wasn’t there. Instead, they had spent the day bombarding a house that was empty except for Shaniz’s dog, Blue.

Shaniz sued, arguing that she had given police consent only to go inside her house, not to blow it up. But she lost. She didn’t lose because the courts held that consent to go into a house is consent to destroy it. She lost because no court had ever ruled in a case exactly like hers before. And because no court had explicitly considered these facts, qualified immunity applied.

IJ is asking the Supreme Court of the United States to take Shaniz’s case and rule that qualified immunity cannot be used like this to strip basic protections for property rights.

In another case (both are part of the institute’s Project on Immunity and Accountability), a family had their home destroyed by police who were chasing a shoplifter who had “randomly taken refuge [there] while fleeing the police,” as IJ puts it in a press release. “The fugitive was apprehended, but the home was totaled.” Hear homeowners Leo and Alfonsina Lech tell their story in this IJ video.

QUICK HITS

• Coronavirus is about to shut down your daily lives and its time to face it, argues Tim Carney.
• Good or bad idea?

More of this. If governments refuse to provide these potentially life saving details, we should encourage people who tested positive to volunteer them. Post publicly where you traveled, what restaurants you patronized, events you attended, etc. https://t.co/y5X7dhIlu1

— Radley Balko (@radleybalko) March 11, 2020

• FBI excuse doesn’t cut it:

Brutal #FOIA opinion from the D.C. Cir. this morning.

DOJ says it can't redact video and therefore must keep all of it secret. Court: Teenagers edit videos all the time, and "presumably, most of these teenagers have fewer resources than the United States government." pic.twitter.com/EWC6nM3GuZ

— Brad Heath (@bradheath) March 10, 2020

• Do you have a First Amendment right to a Slayer-themed license plate?

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How should the United States government and the rest of us respond to the coronavirus, which the World Health Organization has just declared a global pandemic?

Balaji Srinivasan, who was on a short list to run Donald Trump’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA), has some strong opinions on the matter. Srinivasan is a former venture capitalist at Andreessen Horowitz and a serial entrepreneur with a Ph.D. in electrical engineering. The genetic testing company he co-founded, Counsyl, helped change the way millions of people prepare for parenthood; his cryptocurrency startup, Earn.com, was acquired by Coinbase, where he served as chief technology officer.

In his prescient and lively Twitter feed, Srinivasan has been ahead of the curve in noting the coronavirus’s potential to cause a global public health crisis and to disrupt our economic and social lives. During a conversation conducted via Skype, he talked about why he thinks the coronavirus may have as big an impact on our way of life as the 9/11 attacks, how the United States government—especially the FDA he once might have headed—has fumbled its response, and why we’re likely looking at mandatory quarantines at the national level.

At the same time, Srinivasan believes that private-sector and nonprofit actors are conducting a “digital Dunkirk” rescue operation that could not just save countless lives but accelerate positive forms of decentralization in our political, economic, and personal lives.

Photo credits: Balaji Srinivasan speaks onstage during TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2017, Steve Jennings/Getty Images for TechCrunch

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From Judge John Z. Lee (N.D. Ill.) in yesterday’s Wedgewood v. Daily Beast Co. LLC decision:

Eric Wedgewood is the creator of Content Zone, a page that collects and distributes memes…. Taylor Lorenz worked as a content journalist for [the Daily Beast].

On April 14, 2018, an anonymous Instagram account began impersonating Wedgewood. For about a week, the account posted false statements accusing Wedgewood of pursuing underage girls. Just eight days after the account was created, Instagram shut it down.At around the same time, Lorenz began investigating Wedgewood. Although Lorenz’s research methods remain unclear, she claims to have spoken with several anonymous sources who received improper messages from him. At the end of her investigation, Lorenz invited Wedgewood to comment on her story, but did not interview him or otherwise inform him about the nature of her research.

Soon, The Daily Beast published Lorenz’s article on Wedgewood. Titled “‘He Started Messaging Me When I was 16’: Female Members Slam ‘Content Zone’s’ Creator,” the article quoted two anonymous women who criticized Wedgewood for hitting on them when they were underage. With Wedgewood’s alleged misconduct as a starting point, Lorenz went on to describe a broader problem with Instagram’s meme pages. “[I]t [i]s sadly unsurprising to see an older man [such as Wedgewood] using an anonymous meme account to allegedly pick up young women,” Lorenz reported, as “this type of behavior is rampant on [Instagram].”

Wedgewood faults many aspects of Lorenz’s reporting. For example, he notes that she does not seem to have corroborated the claims of the anonymous sources quoted in her article. He also chastises Lorenz for failing to investigate the possible connection between those sources and the Instagram account that had targeted him.

Wedgewood sued The Daily Beast, but the court dismissed the case:

Wedgewood argues that The Daily Beast defamed him by reporting that he flirted with underage girls. Under Illinois law, … [t]o state a plausible defamation claim, a plaintiff must show that: (1) “the defendant made a false statement about the plaintiff,” (2) “the defendant made an unprivileged publication of that statement to a third party,” and (3) “that this publication caused damages.” Perfect Choice Exteriors, LLC v. Better Bus. Bureau of Cent. Ill., Inc., 99 N.E.3d 541, 547 (Ill. App. Ct. 2018). Here, The Daily Beast contends that Wedgewood cannot establish the damages element.

In a defamation case, the plaintiff may satisfy the damages requirement in one of two ways. First, “a statement is defamatory per se—meaning that damages are presumed—if its harm is obvious and apparent on its face.” As relevant here, “words which impute the commission of a criminal offense” and “words that prejudice a party, or impute lack of ability, in his or her trade, profession or business” amount to defamation per se.  In a per quod action, “damage to the plaintiff’s reputation is not presumed, and the plaintiff must prove special damages in order to recover.” …

Wedgewood’s primary argument is that by implying that he had solicited teenage girls—a criminal offense—The Daily Beast committed defamation per se. In her article, Lorenz wrote that Wedgewood “hit[] on underage girls via direct message.” The “intended inference[] and imputation[],” Wedgewood warns, “are that [he] engaged in alleged sexual misconduct involving underage girls that is reasonably understood as a crime.” The Court agrees that one interpretation of Lorenz’s article is that Wedgewood intentionally [and criminally] solicited minors to perform sexual acts.

But that is not the only plausible reading. Under the [Illinois] innocent construction rule, if a “statement may reasonably be interpreted as asserting something other than what is implicated by the [relevant] per se category, it is not actionable per se.” Although the allegedly defamatory statements need not “state the commission of a crime … with the particularity of an indictment,” “a nondefamatory interpretation must be adopted if it is reasonable.”

Here, a reasonable reading of Lorenz’s article is that although Wedgewood communicated with underage girls, he never meant to take things further. See 720 Ill. Comp. Stat. 5/11-6(a) (clarifying that indecent solicitation of a minor requires intent to commit sexual assault). Notably, The Daily Beast did not report that Wedgewood asked girls to share inappropriate pictures, meet him in person, or engage in sexual activity. In those circumstances, Lorenz’s article can reasonably be read as accusing Wedgewood of what is certainly questionable conduct, but not illegal conduct. As such, Wedgewood has failed to establish defamation per se.

Arguing in the alternative, Wedgewood attempts to fit Lorenz’s article into a different category of defamation per se. The allegedly defamatory statements, Wedgewood insists, “prejudice[d] him in his profession.” But that is all Wedgewood says. Missing from his response is any explanation as to how the allegedly defamatory statements disrupted his business. Indeed, he does not even state what his profession is. As such, the Court finds that Wedgewood has waived argument as to this issue. In short, Wedgewood cannot state a claim for defamation per se….

Wedgewood’s effort to plead defamation per quod fares no better. To make out such a claim, a plaintiff must prepare “a specific accounting of [his] damages or an explanation of how the purported defamation caused them.” Wedgewood’s vague references to “loss of income [and] loss of reputation” fall short of that high standard…. “General allegations of damages, such as damages to an individual’s … reputation or general economic loss, are insufficient to state a claim of defamation per quod.” …

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3/12/1889: Justice John Campbell dies.

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The COVID-19 coronavirus is in the news with new cases reported every day. The list of schools, colleges, and other institutions suspending their efforts is also adding up. But there’s one education sector that may get away with minimal disruption: homeschoolers. Families that take responsibility for their kids’ education have a distinct edge in terms of flexibility and adaptability when it comes to unexpected events like … well … a worldwide pandemic that has people on edge.

“Closing schools and using internet-based teleschooling to continue education” was the scenario envisioned by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Dr. Nancy Messonier in a February 25 press conference. “You should ask your children’s school about their plans for school dismissals or school closures. Ask if there are plans for teleschool.”

Teleschool? Homeschoolers are so on that. Or if they’re not into teleschooling, they have a stack of books and papers, kitchen-counter science experiments, video lectures … The list goes on, and much of it adds up to the “social distancing measures” of which teleschooling is supposed to be part.

What’s “social distancing”? As Messonnier noted, social distancing is “designed to keep people who are sick away from others.” That means breaking up large gatherings where germs can be shared and spread.

Discouraging gatherings is an important move from a public health perspective, but it’s enormously disruptive to businesses, government bodies, and organizations that are designed around assembling large numbers of people in one place. That means big challenges for, among other institutions, traditional brick-and-mortar schools. Homeschoolers, however, have an edge because their efforts are not inherently constructed around large gatherings.

That doesn’t mean that homeschoolers never get together. Contrary to accusations from critics, family-based education is not an inherently solitary venture.

Homeschooling often involves group lessons that take advantage of specialized expertise, collaborative projects, field trips with homeschooling associations, sports teams, and more—which means that homeschoolers have changes to make in a time of pandemic, too, in terms of reducing or eliminating outings and activities. But that doesn’t mean cutting down on education; these days, there are loads of relatively easy work-arounds for homeschooling families.

If you’re new to family-based education, and especially if you’re busy with your own remote work, you may find it best to go with a comprehensive online program, like a virtual publicly-funded charter school or tuition-charging private school.

Virtual private schools are available anywhere in the United States, while the availability of charters depends on your local laws. Arizona, where I live, maintains a list of virtual charter schools, but you’ll need to do a bit of research for your own state.

Besides full schools, the Internet is a treasure-trove of learning materials that don’t require you to trek to a bookstore, a lecture hall, or even to wait for package delivery. Classic literature is available for free in electronic format through Project Gutenberg, Khan Academy has long since expanded beyond its original mission of delivering math lessons, the American Chemical Society gives away a complete chemistry curriculum, and a variety of lesson plans are freely available from the National Endowment for the Humanities’ Edsitement. If you’re interested, I’ve prepared a downloadable list of resources.

I’ve never met a conference software that I’ve loved—video sometimes freezes, audio drops out, and connections fail. That said, my son has used both Blackboard and Zoom in the course of his lessons, and he and his peers as young as 10 or so took to it naturally, even troubleshooting glitches as needed. Conferencing software will accommodate presentations, feedback, shared screens, and other means of simulating a classroom across distances and without putting students in one place to share germs. Teachers and students can even transfer files back and forth.

Skype is an excellent stand-by for online meetings with teachers. Yes, your kids can be verbally quizzed in a foreign language across that platform while the teacher looks on to check for cheat sheets or other shortcuts. The kids might then receive messaged feedback through the same software.

For teamwork on projects, I think working online may be more effective than getting a bunch of kids together in one room. Recently, I got to listen to a bunch of 14- and 15-year-olds collaborate on a script for a skit that they edited in Google Docs. For presentations, they’ve worked the same way in Google Slides. One nice feature is that the technological solutions really cut down on the “I left my work at my friend’s house” factor. No, you didn’t, kid; it’s sitting in the cloud.

(Incidentally, collaborative software doesn’t make teenagers act any less like teenagers. If forced to listen in, you will still want to bang your head on a table.)

When it comes to sharing short pieces of work, art, and the like, my son and his friends sometimes take photos of their efforts and text them to each other or to an instructor. That’s a quick and easy solution in many cases when uploading and downloading documents is more effort than necessary.

The hard part isn’t finding work for your home students to do; it’s keeping them focused. Every child is different, and some are more self-directed than others.

Yes, you will have to check on them even if you’re not directly administering their lessons. That can be a challenge for new homeschoolers, but my experience is that most kids respond better to mom and dad than they do to teachers they barely know and won’t see after the year’s end.

Socializing is where the “social distancing” recommended for our virus-ridden times bites deep. But I have to imagine that cell phones, social media, and video chat make easier work of dealing with the requirements of the pandemic than what our ancestors suffered when they dodged polio or the Spanish flu. The kids can all complain to each other over their favorite apps about the privations they’re suffering in these hard times.

Fast delivery, downloadable books, and streaming video do away with a bit of the sting, too. The kids can still consume current media and discuss their favorite shows and novels—just not face-to-face for a while.

And here’s the thing. If you try homeschooling, you may discover that it’s not just a good way to keep COVID-19 at bay, but an effective approach to education more generally and a good fit for your family. If so, well, welcome to a happy, healthy, and growing club.

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