Month: January 2023

Five Memphis cops involved in the killing of Tyre Nichols have been indicted on charges that include kidnapping and murder. Nichols died after being pulled over for a traffic stop on January 7.

“A confrontation occurred,” Nichols fled on foot, and then “another confrontation occurred,” police said. He was taken to the hospital, where he died three days later.

In typical law enforcement speak, the Memphis Police Department characterized the 29-year-old’s death as resulting from injuries sustained during a “use-of-force incident with officers.”

Authorities will release body camera footage of that incident this evening, according to Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy. And you can tell it will be bad by the fact that officials are already pleading with people not to riot.

“Officials in Memphis have braced for potential civil unrest and have called for peaceful protests ahead of video of the fatal police encounter that’s expected to be publicly released Friday,” reports CNN. “The local school district also canceled all after-school activities Friday in the ‘interest of public safety.'”

President Joe Biden also issued a statement yesterday. “I join Tyre’s family in calling for peaceful protest,” said Biden. “Outrage is understandable, but violence is never acceptable.”

(The satirical newspaper The Onion sums it up as “Police Urge Calm In Light Of Unspeakable Evil They Committed.”)

The five officers charged in conjunction with Nichols’ death—all now fired from the Memphis Police Department—are Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Justin Smith, Emmitt Martin III, and Desmond Mills Jr. They have each been charged with one count of second-degree murder, one count of aggravated assault–acting in concert, two counts of aggravated kidnapping, two counts of official misconduct, and one count of official oppression.

All five officers are black, as was Nichols—highlighting how the culture of U.S. policing, not just racism, contributes to America’s abysmal police brutality problem.

since this will come up a lot in media coverage of Tyre Nichols in Memphis: while I get that it seems narratively significant that the officers are black. Statistically, it is unsurprising. In tracking police violence, we never found that race of the officer made much difference

— Wesley (@WesleyLowery) January 26, 2023

The body camera footage “cuts in as the first encounter is in progress,” Mulroy told CNN on Thursday. “What struck me (about the video) is how many different incidents of unwarranted force occurred sporadically by different individuals over a long period of time.”

Tennessee Bureau of Investigation Director David Rausch said he was “sickened” by what he saw in the video, calling it “absolutely appalling.”

Antonio Romanucci, an attorney for Nichols’ family, said Nichols “was defenseless the entire time. He was a human piñata for those police officers.…Not only was it violent, it was savage.”

FREE MINDS

Judge issues preliminary injunction against California’s COVID-19 censorship law. A federal judge has temporarily halted the implementation of a California law (Assembly Bill 2098) that empowered the Medical Board of California to sanction doctors who provide COVID-19 information that the state deems counter to “contemporary scientific consensus.” The law is being challenged by the New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA). Judge William B. Shubb of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California ruled yesterday that the NCLA has standing to bring the case, and he halted implementation of the law as the case plays out.

The phrase contemporary scientific consensus “lacks an established meaning within the medical community,” noted Shubb in his decision. Accordingly, doctors are “unable to determine if their intended conduct contradicts the scientific consensus, and accordingly ‘what is prohibited by the law.'”

“COVID-19 is such a new and evolving area of scientific study, it may be hard to determine which scientific conclusions are ‘false’ at a given point in time,” Shubb added.

More on the decision here from Reason‘s Jacob Sullum.

FREE MARKETS

Freer countries, richer people. The Cato Institute’s eighth annual Human Freedom Index (HFI) is out. The index ranks countries and jurisdictions around the world by looking at 83 indicators of personal and economic freedom:

On a scale of 0 to 10, where 10 represents more freedom, the average human freedom rating for the 165 jurisdictions fell from 7.03 in 2019 to 6.81 in 2020. Most areas of freedom fell, including significant declines in the rule of law and freedom of movement, expression, association and assembly, and freedom to trade. Based on that coverage, 94.3 percent of the world’s population lives in jurisdictions that saw a fall in human freedom from 2019 to 2020, with 148 jurisdictions decreasing their ratings and 16 improving.

Countries that scored the highest (in order) were Switzerland, New Zealand, Estonia, Denmark, Ireland, Sweden, Iceland, Finland, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg.

Selected jurisdictions rank as follows: Canada (13), Taiwan (14), Japan (16), Germany (18), United Kingdom (20), United States (23), South Korea (30), Chile (32), France (42), Argentina (74), South Africa (77), Brazil (80), Ukraine (89), Mexico (98), India (112), Russia (119), Nigeria (124), Turkey (130), China (152), Saudi Arabia (159), Iran (162), Venezuela (163), and Syria (165).

Cato notes that freer countries tend to be richer countries.

Jurisdictions in the freest quartile enjoy more than twice the average per capita income ($48,644) of those in the other quartiles ($23,404 for the second freest). On average, the freest jurisdictions in the world have a much higher per capita income than those that are less free. The HFI also finds a strong relationship between human freedom and democracy.

QUICK HITS

Well this is pretty new.

DeSantis leads Trump by double digits in NH, 42-30 — this time in a crowded field, not a 1-on-1 matchup.https://t.co/HWCeAZCUyQ pic.twitter.com/MU2KpUd2za

— Aaron Blake (@AaronBlake) January 26, 2023

• Biden’s biggest immigration policy mistakes: “failing to frame the situation at the border as a refugee crisis and continuing some of former President Donald Trump’s enforcement policies at the border.”

• Special counsel John H. Durham’s investigation into whether the Trump-Russia investigation was corrupt is closing, “without uncovering anything like the deep state plot alleged by Mr. Trump and suspected by [former Attorney General Bill] Barr,” notes The New York Times. But at one point, the probe veered into investigating Trump himself for alleged financial crimes—a development reported in media at the time as if Durham had found evidence of criminal wrongdoing by people involved in the Russia probe.

• Ben Dreyfuss has some good observations on the Stanford student reading Mein Kampf.

• Spain is considering legislation to criminalize people who pay for sex and anyone who rents a room to “facilitate the prostitution of another person, even with their consent.” Human Rights Watch urges Spanish lawmakers to reject this proposal.

• Economist Emily Oster drills down on research related to alcohol and health.

• TikTok is not a national security threat.

• A new study published in the Journal of Health Economics shows that states with legal marijuana have significantly lower numbers of pharmacy-based codeine prescriptions.

• “So much of the imagery that people see about abortion comes from abortion opponents who have spent decades spreading misleading fetal imagery to further their cause,” write doctors Erika Bliss, Joan Fleischman, and Michele Gomez, co-founders of the My Abortion Network. They aim to showcase what pregnancy tissue in early pregnancy actually looks like.

• Flexible homeschooling is entering the mainstream, J.D. Tuccille writes.

The post 5 Memphis Cops Charged With Murder of Tyre Nichols, Who Died After Traffic Stop Beating appeared first on Reason.com.

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After my column last week about environmentalists’ apparent desire to make our lives miserable as they try to improve the environment, I heard from progressives who accused me of jumping on the Fox News bandwagon. That’s because I pointed to their latest crusade to highlight the supposed danger of natural-gas stoves.

“I’d laugh my a** off about all the dipsticks freaking out about the imaginary war on gas stoves, but sadly, it’s an indication of just how dumb and easily led so many people are,” wrote one former journalist on Twitter. That echoed a common theme: conservatives are engaged in their latest unsubstantiated freak-out regarding some “reasonable” policy.

Few regular readers could accuse me of jumping on right-wing bandwagons. Despite some overstatement and inaccurate reporting—and try to find any issue that doesn’t garner hysteria on social media—the conservatives are right on point. Climate warriors are indeed trying to ban gas stoves, although they are smart enough to offer a patina of deniability.

Let’s recap. The Consumer Product Safety Commission, the federal agency charged with protecting the public from unsafe products, declared its intention to evaluate gas-stove emissions. “Research indicates that emissions from gas stoves can be hazardous,” the agency explained. Although beloved by cooks, gas stoves allegedly erode indoor air quality and contribute to asthma problems.

As that journalist noted in a rebuttal to my dismissive tweet, “Oooooh, research. Scary! Who could want more knowledge, after all? I assume you oppose scientific research because you did your own?” No, I have not commissioned my own studies on gas-stove emissions, but I have been studying the gaseous emissions from environmentalists and regulators my entire career and can draw some conclusions.

For starters, government efforts to ban stuff always start with a study. Government agencies don’t simply announce a ban on a popular item—whether gas stoves, gas-powered lawnmowers, or internal-combustion-engine vehicles. They start with a premise (this item is dangerous) and then study the Very Serious Issue. Ideologically aligned interests produce studies with predictable results.

In response to the brouhaha, CPSC Chairman Alexander Hoehn-Saric issued a statement assuring Americans that, “I am not looking to ban gas stoves and the CPSC has no proceeding to do so.” But that’s a bit disingenuous. CPSC has been targeting gas stoves for months—and it’s become a cause du jour among many local officials.

And remember how this got started. CPSC commissioner Richard Trumka Jr. said in an interview that, “(T)his is a hidden hazard. Any option is on the table. Products that can’t be made safe can be banned.” Imagine the public’s stupidity for taking seriously the words of a top official at an agency that banned lawn darts and ordered their immediate destruction.

If this gas-stove emissions panic came in a vacuum, one might still harangue Republicans for, as one writer put it, thrusting “gas stoves into the culture wars.” Some conservatives responded in an unserious manner, including U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan (R–Ohio) who tweeted: “God. Guns. Gas stoves.” Nevertheless, the Right’s instincts are correct. Progressives might not be coming for your existing stove, but they are trying to stop any new installations.

New York City in 2021 passed a ban on new natural-gas stoves (and other gas-fired appliances) in new buildings. It applies to those under seven stories next year and to taller buildings in four years. In 2019, Berkeley was the first U.S. city to impose a similar ban on new construction.

This year, Los Angeles became the largest city in the United States to implement a gas ban. “Over 60 cities and counties across the state are considering policies to support all-electric new construction,” the Sierra Club reported (gleefully) in 2021. It’s no surprise federal bureaucrats are getting in on the action.

This is how the game works. It is an orchestrated effort driven by climate concerns. Environmentalists want to move toward a renewable electric grid and away from fossil fuels. Natural gas is a fossil fuel. “Natural gas bans are new front in effort to curb emissions,” touted one news headline. What better way to build support for that policy than scare people about the dangers of gas cooking?

My goal isn’t to engage in a deep debate about the latest research. As with all “trust the science” questions, however, one finds differing informed opinions. The CPSC is relying on one compilation of research published by an environmental group that blames stoves for 12 percent of U.S. childhood asthma cases.

Critics, however, claim the study ignored prominent international research showing no asthma link and didn’t address other environmental factors that may have caused the ailment. If indoor air quality were the real issue, then perhaps regulators could insist on proper stove venting—but practical solutions are less interesting than panics.

Do your own evaluation, but don’t let anyone gaslight you into thinking this crusade is imaginary.

This column was first published in The Orange County Register.

The post After Backlash Against Proposed Gas Stove Ban, Progressives Are Gaslighting America appeared first on Reason.com.

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Perhaps the best endorsement of our family’s decision to homeschool our son was his admission to five of the eight colleges to which he applied, with each offering a merit scholarship. While our tour through charters, homeschooling, and private schools—along with observation of others’ experience with traditional public schools—had convinced us of the academic advantages of self-designed education, college applications were the final test of our approach. It passed with flying colors.

But homeschoolers are a diverse bunch, driven by different motivations, teaching by varied methods, and measuring success with their own standards. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic and heightened curriculum wars of recent years, the broad field of DIY education termed “homeschooling” was growing in popularity. Now it has broken out of the fringes and into the mainstream of American life.

“It was mid-morning, midweek and midwinter in the remote Badlands National Park of South Dakota—about as far as one could get from a schoolhouse,” Patti Waldmeier wrote earlier this month for the Financial Times. “Yet throughout this surreal Midwestern moonscape of rainbow rock formations, I repeatedly ran into families with school-aged children. Why weren’t they in class? The reply was always the same: This is our classroom. We are homeschooled.”

That homeschooling has boomed is no secret. How much it has boomed is unclear. The National Center for Education Statistics points to data indicating that, from 2.8 percent of students in 2019, homeschooling grew to 5.4 percent in 2021. The Census Bureau says the number of households homeschooling doubled to 11.1 percent in the same period. There’s a lot of wiggle room.

“The U.S. Department of Education bases its estimate on a questionnaire that it mails to a nationally representative sample of parents every few years. However, better than a third of those surveyed in 2019 did not return the questionnaire, which introduces the possibility of undercounting if home-schooling parents returned the questionnaire at lower rates than other parents,” the University of Oklahoma’s Daniel Hamlin and Harvard University’s Paul E. Peterson pointed out in a recent issue of Education Next. “Clearly, homeschooling is on the rise. Even cautious estimates indicate a doubling of the practice during the pandemic, and the actual shift could be greater,” they add.

People have always had different reasons for DIY education. According to NCES survey data of families homeschooling in 2019, “more than two-thirds of homeschooled students had parents who selected one or more of the following as a reason for homeschooling: a concern about school environment, such as safety, drugs, or negative peer pressure (80 percent); a desire to provide moral instruction (75 percent); emphasis on family life together (75 percent); and a dissatisfaction with the academic instruction at other schools (73 percent).”

For the single most important reason to homeschool, answers ranged from school environment to academics to religious instruction. None were claimed by more than 25 percent of respondents.

Pandemic policies and furious battles over lesson content have created more reasons to homeschool. Many frustrated parents are justifiably convinced they can do better than the chaos they see in public institutions.

“During the pandemic, a growing number of families in California and across the U.S. have chosen to home-school,” Laura Newberry reported last year for the Los Angeles Times. “The reasons for doing so are diverse, complex and span socioeconomic and political spectrums: schools implementing too many COVID-19 safety protocols, or too few; the polarizing conversation around critical race theory; neurodivergent kids struggling with virtual instruction; and an overall waning faith in the public school system.”

With motives so varied, and sometimes entirely at odds, it makes sense that methods are equally diverse. In fact, there’s no one way to take charge of your children’s learning.

“Homeschooling is generally understood to mean that a child’s education takes place exclusively at home—but homeschooling is a continuum, not an all-or-nothing choice,” note Hamlin and Peterson in Education Next. “In a sense, everyone is ‘home-schooled,’ and the ways that families combine learning at home with attending school are many. Parents may decide to home-school one year but not the next. They may teach some subjects at home but send their child to school for others, or they may teach all subjects at home but enroll their child in a school’s sports or drama programs.”

For our family, homeschooling has meant field trips to sites of note, as with the kids Waldmeier met in the Badlands. It also includes online lessons in Spanish and calculus, laboratory science through a community college, university-level composition and history, and assigned readings by my wife and me. It has also involved a detour through private school, martial arts, and hands-on projects.

Other homeschooling families we’ve met follow packaged lesson plans, engage in student-driven unschooling, hire tutors, or recreate the one-room school with microschools. Traditional schools get in on the action with hybrid programs mixing part-time attendance and family-directed study. It’s become common to meet people who compare DIY approaches to their children’s learning.

And yes, homeschooled kids do just fine.

“Homeschooled students had lower depression scores and higher reports of academic success,” JSTOR Daily‘s Katie Gilbert observed in 2021 of research into homeschooling outcomes. “They also tended to rate their entire educational experience more positively.”

“College grades, persistence rates, and graduation rates are generally no different for those who were home-schooled than for those educated in other ways,” according to Hamlin and Peterson. “Trends in employment and income for former homeschoolers also indicate that they tend to do as well as others.”

Increasing popularity and positive results mean that, as Gilbert puts it, homeschooling “evolved from subversive to mainstream.” Only one of the colleges to which Anthony applied had any concerns about his homeschooling experience (after their fourth query, he crossed it off the list). One rejected him, one is still processing applications, and five accepted him with no muss and no fuss, including offers of merit scholarships, admission to honors programs, and credit for the college-level courses he’s taken.

Next fall, he’ll be studying engineering at the University of Arizona.

“Homeschoolers, once thought of as traditionalists holding onto the past, may be an advance guard moving toward a new educational future,” comment Hamlin and Peterson.

To its credit, the world seems ready to embrace the pioneers of that homeschooled future.

The post Flexible Homeschooling Enters the Mainstream appeared first on Reason.com.

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1/27/1955: Chief Justice John Roberts’s birthday.

The post Today in Supreme Court History: January 27, 1955 appeared first on Reason.com.

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