- Chicago city government joins Boston in threatening to use regulation to punish Chick-fil-A for its political views [Josh Barro, Eugene Volokh, earlier, Tim Carney]
- NYC hearing on Bloomberg soda ban “a pre-scripted event with a foregone conclusion” [ACSH, WLF] despite inclusion of Baylen Linnekin on witness list [Reason, Jacob Sullum] If calories are the point: “Hey, Mayor Mike, why not ban beer?” [Sullum, NYDN]
- California restaurants serving foie gras “can be fined up to $1,000…or is it a tax?” [Fox via @ReplevinforaCow]
- When nutrition labeling meets deli salads: the FDA invades Piggly Wiggly [Diane Katz, Heritage]
- “Raw Milk Advocates Lose the Battle But Win the War” [ABA Journal]
- “PLoS Medicine is Publishing An Attack On ‘Big Food'” [David Oliver]
- More signs that Mayor Bloomberg is eyeing liquor as a public health target [NYP, earlier] Oasis in the putative food desert: “In praise of the corner liquor store” [Katherine Mangu-Ward, Reason]
Posts Tagged ‘Chicago’
“10 Days in the Police Academy, 14 Years on Disability”
The Cato Institute recently began providing a home to the previously freestanding National Police Misconduct Reporting Project, which compiles an astounding and varied collection of allegations of misconduct, inefficiency and questionable employment practices in law enforcement. Among them: this report from the Chicago Sun-Times noted by my colleague Tim Lynch. If you have any interest in the topic, you’ll want to add the site to your RSS, Facebook or Twitter feeds.
No, Mayor Menino…
In a free country you can’t keep out a restaurant because you dislike its owner’s politics [Boston Herald on Chick-Fil-A controversy, more on death through regulatory delay as a city tactic, mayor’s letter in PDF; good discussions at Amy Alkon and Popehat/Ken] Comments: “Inclusion. He gives this as justification for excluding someone.” [Ken R at Alkon] “Also, has Boston ever been ‘at the forefront of inclusion’?” [@thad_anderson]
For a powerful vignette of what can happen in certain big cities when the ruling government nomenklatura comes to view the local merchantry as there by sufferance, see John Kass’s recent Chicago Tribune column, recalling the struggles of his Greek immigrant grocer father, via David Zincavage.
P.S. Speaking of taking outspoken stands on same-sex marriage, Chris Geidner of BuzzFeed covers a (very successful!) fundraiser I helped throw over the weekend for like-minded folks in Maryland and D.C. If you’d like to donate as part of the event, you can do so here.
City of the slumped shoulders
Chicago hits a rough patch [Aaron Renn, City Journal] “Cook County is viewed negatively from a litigiousness standpoint,” a statement touched with the quaint understatement for which the insurance business is known [PC 360 on AON, NATO] And here’s a video on how small businesses can face the “Chicagoland shakedown” [via John Cochrane]
April 23 roundup
- Fearful of adverse Supreme Court ruling, Department of Justice said to have exercised pressure on city of St. Paul to buckle in housing-disparate-impact case [Kevin Funnell]
- Justice Janice Rogers Brown: we can dream, can’t we? [Weigel] The Brown/Sentelle opinion everyone’s talking about, questioning rational basis review of economic regulation [Hettinga v. U.S., milk regulations; Fisher, Kerr]
- Claim: “The Bachelor” TV franchise discriminates on basis of race [Jon Hyman]
- Chicago sold off municipal parking garages. Good. It also promised to disallow proposals for private parking nearby. Not good [Urbanophile]
- Bad day in court for Zimmerman prosecution [Tom Maguire, more, Merritt]
- “I want some systematic contacts wherever your long arm can reach” — hot-‘n’-heavy CivPro music video satire [ConcurOp, language]
- Federal judge dismisses charge against man who advocated jury nullification outside courthouse [Lynch, Sullum, earlier]
April 18 roundup
- “MPAA: you can infringe copyright just by embedding a video” [Timothy Lee, Ars Technica]
- NYC: fee for court-appointed fire department race-bias monitor is rather steep [Reuters]
- Larry Schonbron on VW class action [Washington Times] Watch out, world: “U.S. class action lawyers look abroad” [Reuters] Deborah LaFetra, “Non-injury class actions don’t belong in federal court” [PLF]
- Will animal rights groups have to pay hefty legal bill after losing Ringling Bros. suit? [BLT]
- You shouldn’t need a lobbyist to build a house [Mead, Yglesias]
- “Astorino and Westchester Win Against Obama’s HUD” [Brennan, NRO] My two cents [City Journal] Why not abolish HUD? [Kaus]
- “Community organized breaking and entering,” Chicago style [Kevin Funnell; earlier, NYC]
Cook County jail lockdown settlement
“The Cook County Board on Tuesday agreed to pay more than $1 million in taxpayer money to settle a federal lawsuit brought by female County Jail inmates who said their civil rights were violated during repeated weekend lockdowns at the massive detention facility. The bulk of the settlement — $850,000 — will go to attorneys who represented the four inmates in the nine-year court case. Two inmates won federal judgments totaling $143,000, and the county opted to pay two others $5,000 to end the suit. … In addition to the $1 million settlement, the county spent at least $732,144 over the years to pay an outside firm to defend it against the suit, according to county records.” The plaintiffs had failed in a bid for class action status. [Chicago Tribune]
Prosecution roundup
- Six-year-old charged with sexual assault [Channel3000.com, Wisconsin; Radley Balko]
- “Beware: Cities Hunting You Down For Reagan-Era Parking Tickets” [David Kiley, AOL]
- Waco, Texas: “McLennan DA fights DNA testing because exonerations override juries” [Grits for Breakfast] Robert Mosteller, “Failures of the Prosecutor’s Duty to ‘Do Justice’ in Extraordinary and Ordinary Miscarriages of Justice” [Legal Ethics Forum]
- Controlled substances: “Could a US lawyer lawfully counsel clients about this proposed new law?” [John Steele, LEF]
- Mens rea erosion a “deeply troublesome trend” [Kevin LaCroix on WSJ] “Trial penalty,” long sentence minimums give prosecutors muscle to extract plea deals [NYT, Sullum] “Settlements feed U.S. prosecutor overreach” [Reynolds Holding, Reuters BreakingViews] “Responsible corporate officer doctrine” worries pharma defense lawyers [WSJ Law Blog] “The continuing quest to criminalize business judgment” [Kirkendall]
- “More than three-quarters of turn-of-the-century Chicago homicides led to no criminal punishment — not because the perpetrator could not be identified, but because no jury would convict.” [William Stuntz’s posthumous book via Cowen]
- “Scalia criticizes narcotics laws” [for over-federalization] [WSJ]
November 4 roundup
- “Kentucky antidiscrimination law doesn’t bar discrimination based on litigiousness” [Volokh]
- “Lawyer sues to stop fireworks show; now wants $756K in fees from taxpayers” [CJAC, San Diego]
- Leahy bill reauthorizing VAWA (Violence Against Women Act) includes language codifying OCR assault on campus due process [Bader, Daily Caller, Inside Higher Ed, FIRE, earlier here, here]
- “One-Ninth the Freedom Kids Used To Have” [Free-Range Kids] “WARNING: Baby in pram! Anything could happen!” [same]
- New Zealand considers criminalizing breaches of fiduciary duty [Prof. Bainbridge]
- From libertarian Steve Chapman, a favorable rating for Rahm Emanuel as Chicago mayor [Chicago Tribune]
- Did California privacy legislation just regulate bloggers? [Eric Goldman, Paul Alan Levy]
Labor and employment law roundup
- Ohio vote looms on Wisconsin-style public labor reform [NRO Corner, Columbus Dispatch, Atlantic Wire, Buckeye Institute “S.B. 5”, Brian Bolduc/NRO]
- Florida lawmaker proposes leave for some employees with domestically abused pets [Eric Meyer]
- UK proposal: let employers have frank talks with underperforming workers without fear of liability [Telegraph]
- “Wisconsin legislation could restrict punitive damages for job bias” [AP]
- No, your mover can’t enter the building: a Chicago lawyer encounters union power [Howard Foster, Frum Forum] An insider’s game: “Two teachers union lobbyists teach for a day to qualify for hefty pensions” [Chicago Tribune]
- Alternatively, we might just want to go back to freedom of contract: “An employer’s bill of rights” [Hyman]
- Michael Fox on “Healthy Workplace Act” proposal creating rights to sue over on-job bullying [Jottings]
- Feds put employer use of “independent contractors” under microscope [Omega HR] FLSA risks to employer of using unpaid interns [SmartHR]
- A bit of health care deregulation from Obama [Tyler Cowen] Related on nurse practitioners: [Goodman]