Mark Ellis on Wiesel

In the end Eli Wiesel was deeply corrupted by his complicity with the occupation and the oppression of Palestinians, says Marc Ellis who has long written about Holocaust philosophers like Wiesel.
http://mondoweiss.net/2016/07/elie-wiesel-is-dead/

In Dissents, Sonia Sotomayor Takes On the Criminal Justice System - The New York Times

In Dissents, Sonia Sotomayor Takes On the Criminal Justice System - The New York Times

by Adam Liptak

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court term had barely gotten underway in early November when Justice Sonia Sotomayor issued her first dissent. A police officer’s “rogue conduct,” she wrote, had left a man dead thanks to a “‘shoot first, think later’ approach to policing.”

Justice Sotomayor would go on to write eight dissents before the term ended last Monday. Read together, they are a remarkable body of work from an increasingly skeptical student of the criminal justice system, one who has concluded that it is clouded by arrogance and machismo and warped by bad faith and racism.

Only Justice Clarence Thomas wrote more dissents last term, but his agenda was different. Laconic on the bench, prolific on the page and varied in his interests, Justice Thomas is committed to understanding the Constitution as did the men who drafted and adopted it centuries ago.

Justice Sotomayor’s concerns are more contemporary and more focused. Her dissents this term came mostly in criminal cases, and were informed as much by events in Ferguson, Mo., in 2014 as by those in Philadelphia in 1787....

OTHERWISE: Did a Fear of Slave Revolts Drive American Independence? - The New York Times

OTHERWISE: Did a Fear of Slave Revolts Drive American Independence? - The New York Times

As to the several sorts of servants: I have formerly observed that pure and proper slavery does not, nay cannot, subsist in England; such I mean, whereby an absolute and unlimited power is given to the master over the life and fortune of the slave. And indeed it is repugnant to reason, and the principles of natural law, that such a state should subsist any where.

Judge William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England - 1765

Is the Tesla self~driving car defective?

Elon Musk's self-driving evangelism masks risk of Tesla autopilot, experts say http://gu.com/p/4ngby?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Blogger

FDA Should Broaden Use Of Real-World Data, Report Says - Law360

OTHERWISE: FDA Should Broaden Use Of Real-World Data, Report Says - Law360

Paternalism, Self-Governance, and Public Health: The Case of E-Cigarettes by Wendy E. Parmet :: SSRN

Paternalism, Self-Governance, and Public Health: The Case of E-Cigarettes by Wendy E. Parmet :: SSRN

This article develops a normative framework for assessing public health laws, using the regulation of e-cigarettes as a case study. Although e-cigarettes are likely far less dangerous to individual users than traditional cigarettes, it remains uncertain whether their proliferation will lead to a reduction of smoking-related disease and deaths or to increased morbidity and mortality. This scientific uncertainty presents regulators with difficult challenges in determining whether and how to regulate e-cigarettes. This article presents a normative framework for analyzing such questions by offering three justifications for public health laws: impaired agency, harm to others, and self-governance. Each justification responds to the common charge that public health laws are impermissibly paternalistic. The self-governance rationale, which is the most robust, and most reflective of public health’s own population perspective, has been the least theorized. This article develops that theory, examining the basis for the justification as well as its limitations. The article then applies its normative framework to the regulation of e-cigarettes, focusing on the FDA’s so-called deeming regulations, which at the time the article was written were pending but have since been promulgated in a substantially similar form...The article supports the FDA’s ultimate decision to ban the sales of e-cigarettes to minors and to require the disclosure of warning labels based upon the impaired agency rationale. However, the scientific uncertainty renders the harm rationale inadequate. As a result, the regulations’ pre-market review requirement must rely on the self-governance rationale for its normative justification. Given the lack of clear legislative guidance and political engagement, the article concludes that the pre-market review provisions are normatively problematic: if public health advocates want to claim the mantle of self-governance, they must take it seriously.

Another All-Out Brawl Over School Funding Is Brewing In Kansas

Another All-Out Brawl Over School Funding Is Brewing In Kansas

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas is bracing for more contentious legal and political fights over education funding even after legislators approved a narrow, short-term fix to satisfy a court mandate and avoid a threatened shutdown of the state's public schools.

Having directed lawmakers to make education funding fairer to poor areas, the Kansas Supreme Court will next consider the larger issue of whether the state spends enough overall on its schools. The justices could rule by early next year; a trial-court panel said the state must increase its annual aid by at least $548 million.

Republican Gov. Sam Brownback and the GOP-dominated Legislature's leaders already have committed to rewriting school funding laws next year. Besides overhauling how money is distributed among the state's 286 local districts, they also want to rethink academic standards and use state funds to improve students' performance.

Kansas is likely to remain mired in the budget problems that have plagued it since Brownback persuaded lawmakers to slash personal income taxes in 2012 and 2013. Any large increase in school spending — whether to comply with a court order or smooth the way for a new funding formula — would require lawmakers to reconsider his signature tax cuts.

Democrats to Christie on his school funding shake-up: No way | NJ.com

 Democrats to Christie on his school funding shake-up: No way | NJ.com
One might think that Abbott XXI settled the fight over parity in New Jersey' education expenditures.  That would be wrong.  Gov. Christie has proposed a new Constitutional amendment that would equalize education spending - eliminating all remedial measures. - gwc

by Susan Livio

TRENTON — The sweeping overhaul of the school funding formula Gov. Chris Christie announced on Tuesday requires the New Jersey Legislature to let voters adopt it by amending the state constitution in November 2017.

But judging from the immediate reaction from the Democrats who control the Statehouse, the governor should expect a bitter fight.

"This plan is unfair, it is unjust and it is blatantly unconstitutional," according to a statement by state Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D-Gloucester) and state Sen. Theresa Ruiz (D-Essex), chairwoman of the Senate Education Committee.

The governor announced the "Fairness Formula," a plan that would provide every school district with $6,599 per student and scrap the court-ordered methodology that favors low-income urban school districts.

Christie said the proposal would give three-quarters of all districts an increase in state aid, translating into a huge dose of property tax relief. For a state with the highest property taxes in the nation, the idea is likely to gain interest, especially as he plans to campaign for it in towns across the state.

Separated at Birth - Thomas Edsall - The New York Times

Do the courts have any responsiblity for this? Any role in changing it?  Should they?

Separated at Birth - The New York Times

by Thomas Edsall

A report recently released by the Russell Sage Foundation — “Opportunity, Mobility, and Increased Inequality” — concludes

that 60 percent of those born into a bottom-quintile family will themselves be in the bottom two quintiles of the income distribution at age forty, and that 56 percent of those born into a top-quintile family will be in the top two quintiles of the distribution at age forty.

If we focus just on the least well off, the United States today is moving toward “increasing inequality of opportunity,” with the gains over the past several decades for those in the bottom of the income distribution modest, at best, or non-existent.

N.F.L. Tried to Influence Concussion Research, Congressional Study Finds - The New York Times

Bubba Smith (78) died at 66.  He is the 90th NFL player

to be diagnosed  Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy.

N.F.L. Tried to Influence Concussion Research, Congressional Study Finds - The New York Times

When the N.F.L. agreed in 2012 to donate tens of millions of dollars to concussion research overseen by theNational Institutes of Health, it was widely seen as a positive turning point in football’s long history of playing down the long-term effects of brain injuries on players. At the time, the league said that it would have no influence over how the money was used.

But the league and its head, neck and spine committee worked to improperly influence the government research, trying to steer the study toward a doctor with ties to the league, according to a study conducted by a congressional committee and released on Monday.

“Our investigation has shown that while the N.F.L. had been publicly proclaiming its role as funder and accelerator of important research, it was privately attempting to influence that research,” the study concluded. “The N.F.L. attempted to use its ‘unrestricted gift’ as leverage to steer funding away from one of its critics.”

The N.F.L., in a statement, said it rejected the accusations laid out in the study, which was conducted by Democratic members of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. “There is no dispute that there were concerns raised about both the nature of the study in question and possible conflicts of interest,” the league said. “These concerns were raised for review and consideration through the appropriate channels.”