Since the Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment protects people’s freedom to talk about politics, even when they are organized as corporations and even when an election is approaching, Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig has been tinkering with the Constitution in his legal workshop. Here is the result : Nothing in this Constitution shall be construed to restrict the power to limit, though not to ban, campaign expenditures of non-citizens of the United States during the last 60 days before an election
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Larry Lessig’s ‘Simple’ Solution to Excessive Speech
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As I noted yesterday , Congressional Democrats hoping to pass a health care reform bill seem to be hitting snags with the Congressional Budget Office. Their problem isn’t the Senate bill, which is already set, but the language in the reconciliation legislation that would amend the Senate bill: As this helpful piece in the Post explains, reconciliation bills have special budgetary requirements that may be difficult to meet given the Democrats’ other goals: Because Democrats are using special budget rules, known as reconciliation, to protect the package from a Republican filibuster, the measure must reduce the deficit by at least $2 billion over the next five years and avoid increasing the deficit in any year thereafter. Under normal circumstances, that rule would require the bill simply to contain enough revenue-raising provisions to offset new spending.
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CBO Not As Easy As ABC, 1-2-3
State prison populations decline for first time in 40 years. The gay terrorist who could have prevented 9/11. Thieves take $75 million in pharmaceuticals from Eli Lilly warehouse.
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Reason Morning Links: State Prison Populations Drop, the Gay Terrorist, Federalism Reborn
According to Congressional Quarterly , it looks like there’s a good chance that health care reform may be being held up by inconvenient scoring from the Congressional Budget Office. As it stands, the final text of the reconciliation bill—which would amend the Senate health reform bill—has yet to be released. Seems the reason why may be that the CBO is saying that the changes House Democrats want to make would cost too much
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C-B-Oh No! Budget Office Holds Up Health Reform?
That’s Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, speaking to National Public Radio about the widespread criticism she’s received for her involvement in the conservative activist website LibertyCentral.org . Sunday’s LA Times , for instance, worried that the “tea party-linked group…could test the traditional notions of political impartiality for the court”: The move by Virginia Thomas, 52, into the front lines of politics stands in marked contrast to the rarefied culture of the nation’s highest court, which normally prizes the appearance of nonpartisanship and a distance from the fisticuffs of the politics of the day…. “I think the American public expects the justices to be out of politics,” said University of Texas law school professor Lucas A.
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“I did not give up my First Amendment rights when my husband became a justice of the Supreme Court.”
While Reason is busy saving Cleveland , the city’s native son, resident moonbat , and former mayor Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D) is doing his part to save America. Kucinich says he refuses to vote for any of the current iterations of the healthcare reform bill, calling himself ” a firm no .” Kucinich, of course, opposes the bill from the left, lamenting the lack of a public option or protection for state level single payer plans
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Reason Saves Cleveland, Cleveland’s Kucinich Saves America
On March 9, 2010, Reason’s Tim Cavanaugh discussed Greece’s financial problems on Fox Business’ Cavuto . Approximately 5 minutes. Scroll down for downloadable iPod and audio versions.
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Reason Writers on the Tube: Tim Cavanaugh Talks Greece’s Financial Crisis on Fox Business’ Cavuto
As soon as the Supreme Court decision came down in January ruling that the corporate spending ban violated free-speech rights, a number of leading Democrats demanded action to undo this unconscionable wrong. But as Steve Chapman explains, imposing new restrictions on speech is no way to enhance democracy.
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New at Reason: Steve Chapman on the Misguided Liberal Response to Citizens United
With the tedious details of healthcare “reform” and tickle-fighting fantasists sucking up all of the media oxygen, it takes someone like James Pethokoukis, the most informative Greek-American since Dimetrios Synodinos , to remind us that President Obama is neglecting (or purposefully ignoring) a hugely important issue: free trade . Not that Obama has a problem with trade. In his State of the Union speech to Congress last January, he stated an ambitious goal of doubling U.S exports by 2015. It is trade policy that he seems uncomfortable with
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Whatever Happened to Free Trade?
