Category: reason

How Government Caused ‘the Boy Crisis’

Warren Farrell, author of The Boy Crisis, was once associated with the feminist movement. Then he changed his views. “I don’t agree with the part of feminism that says, ‘Men are the oppressors and women are the oppressed,'” Farrell tells Maxim Lott, a senior producer of Stossel on Reason.

For example, men die five years earlier than women, have more dangerous jobs, and are often passed over for custody. Boys are two times more likely than girls to commit suicide. Boys are 29 percent less likely to get a college degree than girls.

So why do men earn more and have more influence in government and business? A big reason, Farrell argues, is that men are filling social expectations to become the family breadwinner.

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The views expressed in this video are solely those of John Stossel, his independent production company, Stossel Productions, and the people he interviews. The claims and opinions set forth in the video and accompanying text are not necessarily those of Reason.

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Oil Prices Are Rising. Don’t Expect Trump’s Tweets to Lower Them.

Gas prices are beyond the ability of any American president to control, but that didn’t stop President Donald Trump from trying to resolve a complex issue with the bluntest of policy tools: his Twitter account set to all-caps.

With oil prices rising to three-year highs last week, Trump exhorted the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to “REDUCE PRICING NOW!”

This isn’t the first time the president has gone after OPEC on Twitter recently:

Iran snapped back at the accusation of OPEC price gauging, accusing Trump of creating market uncertainty and raising oil prices with his tweets. Iran also accused Trump of being the reason for the surge in oil prices through his sanctions on Venezuela and Iran, both members of OPEC.

Meanwhile, North America has enough fossil fuels to last us for “generations,” but government policies often stand in the way of exploiting these resources. If Trump really wants to reduce oil prices in America, he should start there.

“If the U.S. government were to relax regulations on offshore oil resources and expedite having companies develop oil resources that are on federal land, then the U.S. would not nearly be as dependent on OPEC as it currently is,” says Robert Murphy, an economist at the Institute for Energy Research. Freer markets in the energy sector would severely undercut the OPEC cartel and would reduce energy costs for American consumers, who will undeniably benefit from the increased competition.

The president is right that oil prices are rising, and he’s partly correct that OPEC is “doing little to help,” insofar as OPEC isn’t producing enough oil to cope up with market demand. But that’s more of an issue with specific policies that certain OPEC nations have adopted, and not, as the president seems to believe, a conscious conspiracy to hurt American consumers. In fact, Yahoo Finance reported Thursday that Saudi Arabia will bring down the price of a barrel of light oil from $2.10 to $1.90.

Crude Oil Prices

Iran’s response is also a bit of a half-truth. Yes, sanctions have had a big effect on Iranian oil production, but that isn’t necessarily the case with Venezuela.

“Sanctions on Iran are having a chilling effect on their ability to sell oil on the world market,” says Murphy. “With Venezuela, I would say that’s more the fault of their domestic policies that are crippling their economy overall.”

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The Trump Administration Will Miss a Deadline to Return Separated Children

Already under fire for separating children from their parents at the Mexican border, the Trump administration has informed a federal judge that it will not fully meet today’s deadline to reunite the families.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order last month promising to end the practice of child separation at the border. In the month leading up to the executive order alone, some 2,300 children were separated from their parents and placed in “cage-like juvenile detention facilities.” Though the practice of separation will end, the prosecutions of adults suspected of residing in the United States illegally, which led to the separations in the first place, will continue.

About a week after Trump signed the order, U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw of San Diego ordered that all children be returned within 30 days. The decision came in a preliminary injunction after the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a lawsuit. Sabraw also gave the immigration authorities 14 days to reunite children under the age of 5 with their parents.

By Monday, Justice Department lawyer Sarah Fabian announced that the 14-day deadline would not be fully met. Fabian explained that of the 102 children under 5 who have been identified, only 54 of them—possibly 59—would be reunited with their families on time.

The government has reportedly struggled to offer exact information about the number of children separated from their parents. The ACLU claims that the government initially provided incomplete information about the children.

“It’s extremely disappointing that the Trump administration looks like it will fail to reunite even half the children under 5 with their parents. These kids have already suffered so much because of this policy, and every extra day apart just adds to that pain,” the ACLU’s Lee Gelernt said in a statement.

Both Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen have attempted to argue that the separation policy was set in place to combat human trafficking. Despite the president’s insistence that fraudulent family units make up a significant percentage of family crossings (“like nobody would believe”), The New York Times reports that such scams “make up less than 1 percent of the families apprehended at the border.”

In addition to the reunification order, Sabraw issued a nationwide injunction to cease the separation policy, with an exception for parents who are either deemed unfit or do not wish to remain with their children. Authorities must also allow separated parents and children to contact each other via phone within 10 days, per the injunction.

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Everyone Hates Brett Kavanaugh, Everyone Loves Brett Kavanaugh: Reason Roundup

A dose (or a dozen) of perspective on Brett Kavanaugh, President Donald Trump’s new nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court. The 53-year-old D.C. appeals court judge once clerked for retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy—a fact that may have eased Kennedy’s fears about retiring (…or maybe not)—and has strengths and weaknesses from a libertarian perspective. Here’s what we know (and don’t know) so far about Kavanaugh’s judicial leanings, along with a healthy side of speculation from folks across the partisan spectrum.

Democratic senators such as Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut have been throwing around all sorts of Kavanaugh alarm around to see what sticks—he’s a “right-wing ideologue” (says Markey) who has been “screened and vetted by extreme right-wing groups” (Blumenthal), a puppet of corporations, or the Koch Brothers, or…something. Something bad.

Much of the criticism isn’t aimed at Kavanaugh per se but at the allegedly crooked process that got us here. The crux of this strained argument is that Trump considered the recommendations put forth by the Federalist Society, a conservative legal organization (or “a small, secretive network of extremely conservative Catholic activists,” if you’re feeling hystrionic like The Daily Beast’s Jay Michaelson).

But there’s no shortage of fear—and praise—from the respective sides for Kavanaugh’s record on things like gun rights.

Kavanaugh is “receptive to cases that challenge gun control laws” and also “sensitive to the constitutional implications of regulations that interfere with freedom of speech,” noted Reason‘s Jacob Sullum last week. But “Kavanaugh seems to take a narrower view of Fourth Amendment rights.”

“Many observers have suggested that President Trump will try to replace Justice Kennedy with a jurist ‘in the mold’ of Antonin Scalia, or perhaps of Scalia’s successor, Neil Gorsuch,” Reason‘s Damon Root pointed out over the weekend. But with Kavanaugh, we “may well end up with a jurist in the mold of John Roberts.”

The New York Times editorial board frets that “Judge Kavanaugh would shift the balance of constitutional jurisprudence to the right, creating a solid right-wing majority on the court possibly until the second half of the 21st century,” and leaving Robers “as the fulcrum for the court.”

But the paper also published a range of perspectives on Trump’s pick, including this from liberal Yale Law School professor Akhil Reed Amar:

The nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to be the next Supreme Court justice is President Trump’s finest hour, his classiest move. Last week the president promised to select “someone with impeccable credentials, great intellect, unbiased judgment, and deep reverence for the laws and Constitution of the United States.” In picking Judge Kavanaugh, he has done just that.

The Times also notes that Kavanaugh “once argued that President Bill Clinton could be impeached for lying to his staff and misleading the public, a broad definition of obstruction of justice that would be damaging if applied to President Trump in the Russia investigation.”

Here’s what libertarian-leaning types—plus everyone’s new favorite socialist—have been saying:

FREE MARKETS

D.C. Council may repeal minimum wage for tipped workers. Initiative 77, approved by D.C. voters in June, would raise the minimum wage for waiters, bartenders, and other workers paid partially in tips to $15 per hour by 2026, up from $3.33 currently. But it might not make it into law. WTOP reports:

A bill to repeal the measure is being discussed and could be introduced during a council meeting on Tuesday, according to a spokesperson for D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson.

The measure is expected to be sponsored by at least six council members—including Mendelson—who have publicly denounced the measure.

Opponents believe the measure will force restaurants to raise menu prices, reduce their staff and lead to less take-home pay for servers. Supporters argue that the initiative will reduce worker mistreatment and give them a steady income.

TWEETER-IN-CHIEF

He’s been on quite the roll this week…

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Miami Politicians Do Their Level Best to Spend as Much as Humanly Possible on Transit

Some politicians just want to spend money, even when opportunities for savings are smacking them in the face. Witness the fight breaking out between Miami-area politicians over whether they should use light rail or Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) to extend transit service to southern Miami-Dade County.

On the face of it, BRT—basically an express bus service that uses larger vehicles to make frequent trips in dedicated lanes—sounds like a better deal. The county already maintains a bus-only roadway that would be used for any new BRT route, whereas a rail extension would require new track to be laid. A BRT line is estimated to cost $250–$300 million, while a light rail expansion servicing the same area would cost as much as $1.5 billion to build—and 80 percent more to operate. A BRT line could be finished by 2022. Light rail would take years longer.

True, the county estimates that a BRT line would carry only 25,000 people a day, compared to the 40,000 who would supposedly take the light rail. Nevertheless, BRT still works out to be the cheaper per passenger option.

Besides the cost, there’s the flexibility. Light rail is permanent, so it will always go to the same place, even if people, homes, and jobs move elsewhere. BRT can be more responsive to changing transit patterns.

Some cities have seen great success with BRT lines. Los Angeles’ Orange Line—an 18-mile BRT route that opened in 2005—exceeded ridership estimates by threefold, a true rarity in public transit. Cash-strapped locales like Mexico City and Istanbul have used BRT to build out their transit networks without breaking the bank.

All that has been enough for Mayor Carlos Gimenez to endorse BRT. But state Rep. Kionne McGhee (D–South Dade) has spent the last two years leading what he calls a “revolt” against BRT.

“People in the south understand that if they settle for a bus, they’ll never get a rail. Nobody wants buses,” McGhee told The Miami Herald last week. Last week he sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Transportation urging it to deny any funds to Miami-Dade County that were not earmarked for light rail. His Twitter feed features frequent and impassioned denunciations of anyone advocating transit that doesn’t run on tracks.

It isn’t entirely clear why exactly McGhee and his allies prefer a vastly more expensive light rail system. Looking at the comments from pro-rail politicians going back several years, their reasoning seems to be that rail is just self-evidently better. “People don’t like to take buses. Unless they have no alternative,” County Commissioner Xavier Suarez told the Herald in 2016.

“I say let’s go for it. If we fall short, at least we’re falling short in trying to make a difference, and trying to bring enhanced transportation to this community,” Commissioner Dennis Moss said last year of a plan that would prioritize light rail over BRT.

Baruch Feigenbaum, a transportation policy analyst with the Reason Foundation (the nonprofit that publishes this website), politicians have an innate bias against light rail.

“Politicians don’t care about cost-benefit analysis,” he says. “What they know is what they can visualize and what they can cut a ribbon on.”

The county’s transportation board is scheduled to vote on BRT on July 19.

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Hey, Progressives and Conservatives, You’re Stuck With Each Other: New at Reason

That Team Blue and Team Red fantasize about total victory over one another is no shocker in our current loathing-fueled political environment. “Democratic and Republican voters…despise each other, and to a degree that political scientists and pollsters say has gotten significantly worse over the last 50 years,” Emily Badger and Niraj Chokshi wrote for The New York Times last summer. Nothing has changed since then.

But free societies don’t make any provision for beating and defeating opponents in a permanent way, notes J.D. Tuccille. Republicans fantasize about a “hundred-year majority” and Democrats stroke themselves with talk of a “permanent progressive majority,” but it’s all back-patting self-delusion. Opinions and affiliations come and go. And so long as anything resembling legitimate elections continue to be held, no political coalition will gain a permanent lock on the future. Instead, victories will come and go, and the winners and losers will have to continue to take turns transitioning from role to role.

This, Tuccille point outs, is something libertarians learned a long time ago. It’s time for Team Red and Team Blue to step up to that same level of maturity.

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Brickbat: Teacher of the Year. No, Really

Angry TeacherJust two weeks into the school year, Kandy Escotto knew something was wrong. Her son Aaron, 5, didn’t want to go to school and had bad grades. He told her he was a bad boy. When she spoke to the principal at Aaron’s Miami, Florida, school, the principal said that there was no evidence the boy’s teacher was doing anything wrong. So Escotto hid a recorder in Aaron’s backpack. It caught the teacher, Rosalba Suarez, insulting and humiliating the boy and another student. Suarez was named teacher of the year at the school this year.

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Justin Amash Says Brett Kavanaugh Is a ‘Disappointing Pick’ for Supreme Court

Libertarian-leaning Rep. Justin Amash (R­–Mich.) isn’t happy with President Trump’s choice of Brett Kavanaugh to replace Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy on the Supreme Court.

The D.C. Circuit Court judge is not a staunch defender of Fourth Amendment protections that prevent improper searches and surveillance by the government, Amash said in a tweet:

Amash’s impression of Kavanaugh’s Fourth Amendment record is shared by Reason‘s Jacob Sullum, who wrote that the judge “seems to take a narrower view of Fourth Amendment rights,” than First Amendment or Second Amendment rights.

Unfortunately for civil libertarians who might prefer a different nominee, Amash isn’t in a position to do anything about Kavanaugh. It is the Senate’s job to confirm the president’s nominees to the Supreme Court, and Amash is in the House. Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, a Republican who shares some of Amash’s impulses and has often expressed opposition to the feds spying on Americans, said on Twitter that he looked forward to reviewing Kavanaugh’s record “with an open mind.”

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And the Next Supreme Court Justice Nominee Is Brett Kavanaugh

Jonathan Ernst/REUTERS/NewscomPresident Trump announced his second appointment to the Supreme Court of the United States on Monday evening. The announcement came on the 150th anniversary of the 14th Amendment, which granted citizenship to all “persons born or naturalized in the United States” following the end of slavery in America.

Trump has chosen Brett Kavanaugh to succeed Justice Anthony Kennedy, who announced in June that he would be stepping down from the bench on July 31 of this year.

Kavanaugh, 53, is a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. As Reason previously reported, spectators look to Kavanaugh’s 2011 dissent in Seven-Sky v. Holder to gauge what kind of justice he will be.

The case considered the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Obamacare. Though the case was ultimately decided in favor of the healthcare bill, Kavanaugh’s dissent argued that a federal court should not have heard the case in the first place:

In Kavanaugh’s view, the D.C. Circuit should have been guided by the Anti-Injunction Act, an 1867 law that says, “no suit for the purpose of restraining the assessment or collection of any tax shall be maintained in any court.” In other words, a tax cannot be challenged until it has been assessed and paid. And in Kavanaugh’s view, Obamacare’s individual mandate deserved to be counted as a tax, even though the law’s authors called it a “penalty.” “The Anti- Injunction Act precludes us from deciding this case at this time,” he wrote.

Kavanaugh’s opinions on gun rights, searches and seizures, and Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission have also provided some insight into what decisions will come out of the future court.

As Reason also reported, politics also come into play heavily for Kavanaugh as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell believed that Kavanaugh’s “extensive paper trail could slow down the process and enable Senate Democrats to prevent confirmation prior to the start of the next Supreme Court term in October.” McConnell informed that White House that confirming Kavanaugh would be more difficult than confirming other Trump finalists like Judges Raymond Kethledge or Thomas Hardiman.

It was said that out of the names on Trump’s short-list, he was most favorable toward Raymond Kethledge, 51, of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. In contrast, Trump was least favorable toward Amy Coney Barrett, 46, of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. In fact, Bloomberg reports that her interview with Trump was shorter than everyone else’s, lasting about 30 minutes.

Kavanaugh will replace find themselves replacing a justice who was, as Reason‘s Damon Root observed, a “moderate conservative with liberal tendencies.” Appointed to the Supreme Court in 1987 by President Ronald Reagan, Kennedy’s tie-breaking vote solidified his legacy in influencing highly contested legal issues. Kennedy’s vote played a significant role in deciding cases that are seen cornerstones to American gay rights and abortion laws. Root writes:

Over the years, Kennedy has been denounced by every major faction in American politics. In conservative circles, for example, he has been keelhauled as a reckless judicial activist who “invented” a right to gay marriage. Liberals, meanwhile, have burned him in effigy as the unwitting mouthpiece for corporate oligarchs thanks to his majority opinion in the Citizens United case. And among libertarians, Kennedy has been damned as the fair-weather federalist who torpedoed the rights of local medical marijuana users in favor of a federal drug control scheme. Libertarians will also point out that Kennedy joined the majority opinion that unleashed the forces of eminent domain abuse in Kelo v. City of New London (2005).

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White House: ICE ‘Would’ve Helped Stop 9/11′

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) “would’ve helped stop” the 9/11 terror attacks had it existed at the time, a White House spokesperson said Monday.

White House Deputy Press Secretary Hogan Gidley was responding to liberal actress and Democratic New York gubernatorial candidate Cynthia Nixon’s comments referring to ICE as “terrorist organization.”

“It’s deeply disturbing that Cynthia Nixon has no clue of what ICE does to protect Americans and New Yorkers every day from dangerous criminals, terrorists, child smugglers and human traffickers,” Gidley said in a statement, according to Fox News.

Gidley went on to suggest that since the 9/11 terrorists “were foreign nationals on visas who committed immigration fraud and who should have been deported,” ICE could have stopped them. “It’s especially unfortunate that Nixon, as a New Yorker, not only advocates for the abolition of the very agency that would’ve helped stop 9/11, but also smears and slanders the tireless work carried out by the brave men and women of ICE to keep our country safe,” he said.

ICE was created in 2003 in response to 9/11, though it’s not clear whether the agency really would have been able to prevent the attacks. 9/11 was the result of one of the biggest failures of American intelligence in history, but it’s hard to argue that additional bureaucracy would have made the difference.

It’s not the first time in recent days that the Trump administration has suggested ICE could have helped prevent 9/11. In a fact sheet published Thursday, the White House noted that “many of the 9/11 hijackers committed visa violations,” adding that “ICE identifies dangerous individuals before they enter our country and locates them as they violate our immigration laws.”

In the years since 9/11, many people have speculated on what could have stopped the attacks. According to former FBI Director Robert Mueller, surveillance programs would have helped, while Donald Trump said during his presidential campaign that his immigration policies would have acted as a deterrent. With perhaps the most outlandish claim of all, actor Mark Wahlberg suggested in 2012 (before apologizing) that if he had been a passenger on one of the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center, “it wouldn’t have went down like it did.”

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