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The announcement of William Weld as Gary Johnson’s choice for his running mate in his run for the presidential candidacy of the Libertarian Party (the Party’s delegates will be making their choice at their convention over Memorial Day weekend in Orlando) got the Washington Post to imagine the possibilities of the L.P. actually pushing the election into the House of Representatives.

The Weld pick is already paying off in other respectful media attention.

• Former L.P. supporter Jim Sullivan writes in the Boston Herald from the state Weld governed in the 1990s that this is an opportunity so great it would take a Party as often wrong-way as the L.P. to blow it, and he looks forward to:

watching so many Republicans tripping over themselves in a rush to discredit two of their most popular multi-term ex-governors. New Mexico had 20 of 24 previous years under Democratic rule prior to Johnson’s two terms, voted for Obama in 2012, and also seats a large majority of Democrats in its state legislature. The credentials of Massachusetts as a Democratic bastion are unimpeachable. So both Johnson and Weld won in primarily blue states initially and were re-elected solidly. I can’t wait to hear the whirling dervish sort of spin some Republicans will use in an attempt to make their accomplishments sound like a bad thing.

• The Christian Science Monitor wonders, under the headline “Could a Libertarian Party bid Derail Trump or Clinton?”:

 if many of Senator Sanders’s supporters don’t support Clinton – and if some Republicans such as Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska turn from Trump –   the Libertarians could have a wider opening than previously thought. The potential Libertarian duo both have political histories including time served as state governors, and could feed off of the energy of Sanders and Trump, who rose to the top of their parties’ races despite their outsider statuses.

• The notorious political operative and dirty trickster Roger Stone, who linked up with the L.P. in 2012 and has lately been on the Trump train, says Johnson and Weld are personal friends, great candidates, and should be in the debates.

• David Boaz of the Cato Institute gets in the Daily Beast to call a Johnson/Weld ticket “An opportunity to pick a positive good, not just the lesser of two evils.” Boaz writes that:

they will present a clear alternative to Trump and Clinton: strong and coherent fiscal conservatism, social liberalism, drug-policy reform, criminal-justice reform, reining in mass surveillance, ending executive abuse of power, and a prudent foreign policy that is neither promiscuously interventionist nor erratic and bombastic — all grounded in a philosophical commitment to liberty and limited government.

• The Boston Globe reported on how Weld apparently kept his decision very secret until its public relevation, and that how it highlights chaos in the GOP’s status in Massachusetts:

The state’s popular Republican governor, Baker, has said he would vote in November for neither Trump nor Clinton.

The state’s last Republican to serve in Congress, former US senator Scott Brown, has backed Trump, as has its longtime national committeeman, Ron Kaufman. The party’s chairwoman, Kirsten Hughes, has said she would back the party’s nominee, but has not explicitly endorsed Trump.

And the party’s last GOP governor, 2012 presidential nominee Mitt Romney, has actively worked against Trump and warned of a disastrous presidency if he is elected — as has former acting governor Jane Swift.

• A Wall Street Journal headline says the Weld idea is “boosting Libertarians.”

“Technology Won’t Undermine Human Dignity: Fear of Change Will,” is my contribution to the Washington Post’s In Theory symposium on transhumanism. In that column, I argue against opponents that the decisions to use life-enhancing bio-, nano- and infotech should be left to individuals, not decided by majority vote. From the column: 

The prospect of technologically enhanced humans flourishing makes some people uncomfortable. The “bioconservative” alliance of moralizing neoconservatives and egalitarian left-wingers fears that the new bio-, nano-, and info-technologies threaten human dignity and human equality, but these egalitarian worries are overblown — and, in fact, they go against the liberal society that transhumanism’s opponents revere.

The highest expression of human nature and dignity is to strive to overcome the limitations imposed on us by our genes, our evolution and our environment. Future generations will look back at the beginning of the 21st century and be astonished that some well-meaning and intelligent people actually wanted to stop bio-nano-infotech research and deployment just to protect their cramped and limited vision of human nature. If transhumanism is allowed to progress, I predict that our descendants will look back and thank us for making their world of longer, healthier and abler lives possible.

Other participants in the symposium include:

Founder of Yale Students and Scholars for the Study of Transhumanism David Vincent Kimel, “In Defense of Transhumanism.”

In our future, daily life will be transformed through the increasing automation of labor and the rise in sophistication of artificial intelligence. Life may be less about the 9-to-5 grind and more about education, community and the creation and enjoyment of art. Rather than imagining a future in which humans and machines are at odds — as many thinkers have predicted — transhumanists look forward to the advent of cyborgs, in which computers are incorporated into the brain itself, leading to radically enhanced processing power and the ability to preserve consciousness for lengths of time now deemed inconceivable. The ultimate lesson from transhumanism’s origins in science fiction is perhaps to seek those inventions that would radically enhance lifespans and empower the human imagination to control what it experiences in ways hitherto unimaginable, liberated from the genetic and circumstantial wheel of fortune.

Executive director of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies James J. Hughes, “Soon We Will Use Science to Make People More Moral.”

Drugs, devices and gene therapies will soon allow us to safely suppress our appetites with a level of control only seen in ascetics and achieve transcendent states previously only accessible to yogis. Addictions will be treatable with implants, vaccines and therapies that enable the brain to unlearn dependencies. Psychedelic drug studies and brain imaging of meditators are suggesting ways to turn off neurotic self-absorption and tune into oneness and awe.

Duquesne University political philosopher Charles T. Rubin, “Transhumanists Are Searching for a Dystopian Future.”

With great power ought to come great responsibility. The libertarian strain that is so powerful among transhumanists makes them imagine that such responsibility need be exercised only by individuals making choices about how to modify themselves or their children. What popular culture imagines is that transhumanist promises are being made by flawed human beings to flawed human beings, and that as a result the consequences of their decisions will likely have a broader reach than they anticipate. As a result, the great powers that transhumanism promises are likely to be used not in ways that will solve human problems, but in ways that will perpetuate them yet more terribly.

Washington Post In Theory editor Christine Emba offers a primer on transhumanism for the bewildered, “Will Technology Allow Us to Transcend the Human Condition.”

Transhumanism, in its most extreme manifestation, is reflective of an increasingly pervasive and influential school of thought: that all problems can and should be solved with the right combination of invention, entrepreneurship and resource allocation.

For more background see my article, “The Case for Enhancing People.”

Though Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan vetoed bipartisan efforts to reform the state’s asset forfeiture and drug laws in 2015, a new push has succeeded. Yesterday Hogan, a Republican, signed a bill that tightens the rules for civil asset forfeiture (the mechanism by which police seize and keep assets and property from people suspected of crimes) and also the Justice Reinvestment Act, which reduces the state’s prison population and potentially reduces sentences for drug and non-violent offenses.  

The asset forfeiture bill, HB 336, is modest in scope, but will nevertheless improve the situation for anybody caught up in the system. It raises the standard of proof for seizing property to “clear and convincing evidence.” Because asset forfeiture is often a “civil” not criminal process, officials don’t generally have to prove guilt “beyond a shadow of a doubt” like they do in criminal trials, making it easier to take somebody’s property than it is to actually convict him or her. In order to seize a citizen’s principal home in Maryland, though, officials actually will have to get a criminal conviction. That’s an additional new requirement in the law. The law also eliminates cash forfeitures for simple drug possession cases, but maintains it for trafficking arrests.

The new rules also forbid the transfer of seized cash to federal agencies unless the amount seized is more than $50,000. This is an attempt to prevent law enforcement agencies from bypassing the tighter state rules by turning to the federal Equitable Sharing Program at the Department of Justice. This federal program has looser rules than state laws, and as a result we’re seeing more and more law enforcement agencies attempt to use the federal program to keep what they seize. (A pack of representatives just introduced a bill to try to make the federal rules less prone to abuse.) Unfortunately, there’s an exception in the law to allow for a transfer if there’s a federal warrant involved, and the Institute for Justice warns that this loophole could be pursued even more frequently to bypass Maryland’s new restrictions.

The Justice Reinvestment Act is estimated to reduce Maryland’s state prison population by more than 1,000 over 10 years and to save the state $80 million dollars (that will be spent on other programs). The new law allows for earlier releases of those convicted of non-violent drug offenses and thefts under $1,500. It completely eliminates mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug offenses. It leaves the sentence ranges intact, though, giving judges the discretion over how harsh to be. Mandatory minimums will remain for violent drug-related crimes. It will also significantly increase the types of crimes (from nine to 50) that can be wiped from an offender’s record.

Read more about the provisions of the Justice Reinvestment Act here. Both of these laws ended up a bit more modest but they could have been, but the reforms are valuable and needed. 

Has there ever been a more cynical campaign than the presidential race of 1956? To judge from this documentary, neither candidate took a stand for principle or for sound public policy; instead Popeye, nominee of the Spinach Party, promised free ice cream, while Bluto, of the Blutocratic Party, offered free cigars. The election eventually came down to just one vote—Olive Oyl’s—and the candidates competed for her support by doing her work for her. I don’t know how exactly anyone knew in advance that she was going to cast the deciding ballot; the Constitution, clearly, had been thrown out the window.

Things were different when Daffy Duck tried to run for president. His Trumpish platform of banning rabbits hit a snag when Bugs Bunny explained the Constitution’s limits on presidential power; even after Daffy managed to get elected to Congress instead, he was hemmed in by constitutional restraints. It’s all in this film from 2004, which also includes a brief discussion of the protections to be found in the Fourth Amendment:

Snoopy’s successful bid for the White House—not to be confused with his later service as head beagle—offers a lesson in America’s openness to new religious movements. We’re used to seeing Christian candidates claim that God asked them to run for office; Snoopy instead obeyed a message from the Great Pumpkin. Or so it says in this 1968 report from the Royal Guardsmen, who pretty much owned the “novelty songs about Snoopy” genre back in the ’60s. As in the Popeye/Bluto race, Snoopy’s victory came down to a single vote—and a puzzling one, as I’m pretty sure this voter was actually a citizen of Germany:

The country could have gotten rid of the presidency altogether back in 1932, if Americans had backed the WavyGravyesque candidacy of Mr. Nobody, depicted in the last of our films. But instead they preferred Betty Boop, whose elaborate platform included trollies that pick you up at your second-story window and privacy for dogs who pee in public. Worthy causes, no doubt, but I can’t help imagining the road not taken.

(There was a “Linda Lovelace for President” movie too, but I’ll let you Google that yourselves. For past editions of the Friday A/V Club, go here.)

The Washington Post polled 504 Native American adults, finding that 90 percent said the Washington Redskins name did not bother them. Only 9 percent said they found the name of the NFL franchise offensive. Just 21 percent said they felt the term redskins was offensive in general, with 17 percent saying they’d be offended if a non-Native American called them a redskin.

A vast majority, 73 percent, said the use of Native American imagery in sports didn’t bother them. A majority of respondents said the issue of the Washington Redskins’ name wasn’t important to them at all, even though three-quarters had heard at least something about it.

The Washington Redskins have been called the Redskins longer than they’ve been in Washington. They moved to the city from Boston in 1937—but changed their name from the Braves to the Redskins in 1933.

The most recent wave of controversy over the Redskins name started about half a decade ago. In 2013, a report from the National Congress of American Indians explained the organization’s opposition to the use of offensive Indian imagery, singling out the Washington Redskins. In 2014, the Redskins lost a series of trademarks related to their team name. The Post‘s poll this week appears to be the first one to actually survey Native Americans on their opinion.

“Cultural appropriation” has become a hot topic in the renewed political correctness/culture wars. Anything from chanting to dreadlocks to tequila to yoga can be identified as cultural appropriation by the perpetually aggrieved. It’s a 21st century academic play on the “white man’s burden,” with American “activists” taking up the burden of fighting cultural appropriation. Cultural appropriation critiques “reaffirm the very thing they intend to oppose,” Minh-ha Phan wrote in The Atlantic, “white Western domination over and exploitation of culture at the expense of everyone else.”

While sports commentators who’ve chimed in on the Washington Redskins naming issue before, like ESPN’s Michael Wilbon on Pardon the Interruption yesterday, expressed shock at the results of the Post poll, perhaps it shouldn’t have been so surprising. In 2013, ESPN.com’s Rick Reilly wrote about the attitudes of actual Native Americans he talked to, and pointed to the numerous majority-Native American high schools that use the Redskins name and Indian mascots for their sports teams.

At the intersection of the issues of Native Americans, race in the U.S. and cultural appropriation: despite the mainstream left police reform movement largely organizing around the mantra “Black Lives Matter,” Native Americans are the most likely racial group to be killed by police.

The U.S. Supreme Court receives hundreds of petitions each term from parties seeking to have their cases heard. Most of those petitions are rejected by the Court without any comment or explanation. But on certain rare occasions, one or more justices will speak out in dissent when the Court refuses to take a case. This week Justice Clarence Thomas did precisely that, lambasting his colleagues for choosing “to sit idly by” while bureaucrats at the Department of Education were allowed to set the scope of their own regulatory powers free from any meaningful judicial review by the federal courts.

Thomas’ dissent came in a case called United Student Aid Funds, Inc. v. Bible. At issue was a 2015 ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit which granted broad deference to the Department of Education and its interpretation of federal law and accompanying federal agency rules covering the repayment of student loans. “Even if this were not the best interpretation of the statutes and accompanying regulations,” the 7th Circuit declared, “it is at least a reasonable one, and we defer to that interpretation because it reflects the reasoned position of the Secretary of Education, who is tasked with administering the program.”

As authority for this deferential stance, the 7th Circuit cited the Supreme Court’s 1997 decision in the case of Auer v. Robbins. In Auer Justice Antonin Scalia led the Court in granting extremely broad deference to a federal agency’s interpretation of its own rules. Scalia’s Auer opinion relied in turn on the Supreme Court’s 1945 precedent in a case known as Bowles v. Seminole Rock & Sand Co. “Since this involves an interpretation of an administrative regulation a court must necessarily look to the administrative construction of the regulation if the meaning of the words used is in doubt,” the Court held in Seminole Rock. “The ultimate criterion is the administrative interpretation, which becomes controlling weight unless it is plainly erroneous or inconsistent with the regulation.”

This week’s rejected case, United Student Aid Funds, Inc. v. Bible, asked the Supreme Court to overturn the 7th Circuit and to overrule Auer and Seminole Rock once and for all.

There is certainly good reason for the Supreme Court to revisit those two misguided precedents. As Columbia University law professor Philip Hamburger and the Washington Legal Foundation argue in an amicus brief they submitted in Bible, “the office enjoyed by judges under Article III of the Constitution is one of independent judgment, not deference, heightened respect, or other predisposed bias towards the most powerful of parties—the federal government. Such deference represents a dramatic departure from judicial independence, due process, and the rule of law.”

I think that’s exactly right. I would also add that the whole idea behind judicial deference is that unelected judges should be reluctant to overturn legislation passed by democratically accountable lawmakers on the grounds that such legislation (in theory) reflects the will of the majority. Yet under Seminole Rock/Auer deference, judges are not deferring to any sort of democratically accountable lawmakers; instead, they are deferring to federal bureaucrats. The traditional case for judicial deference is therefore particularly weak in this area of the law.

The Supreme Court, however, refused to get involved this week and declined to revisit Auer and Seminole Rock at this time. Those precedents remain what lawyers call “good law.” That’s what inspired Clarence Thomas to speak out in dissent. “This case is emblematic of the failings of Seminole Rock deference,” Thomas wrote. “By enabling an agency to enact ‘vague rules’ and then to invoke Seminole Rock to ‘do what it pleases’ it later litigation, the agency (with the judicial branch as its co-conspirator) ‘frustrates the notice and predictability purposes of rulemaking, and promotes arbitrary government.'”