Yesterday Gov Jerry Brown signed into law AB 499 which allows minor children age 12 or older to give legal consent for treatment for sexually transmitted diseases without parental consent or notice. This bill (now part of the California Family Code) has gained tremendous notoriety because of its association with the vaccine Gardasil, the same vaccine for which Gov Rick Perry of Texas has endured criticism recently. Gov Perry signed an executive order in 2007 which mandated that girls … Read the rest
Today, the four California US Attorneys — at the orders of the Obama administration — are taking steps to shut down marijuana dispensaries in California. Dispensaries have been ordered closed. Federal prosecutors have sent letters to sixteen pot clubs and their landlords instructing them that their property will be seized if they don’t shut down operations.
Why the Obama administration thinks it’s important to waste resources on marijuana enforcement in California is unclear and frankly pathetic. The so-called war on … Read the rest
This post is the first in the Invisible Santa Bunny topic, so named because of a commenter’s wry query about how the «Magical Santa Bunny of the Free Market» would address certain problems without legislation, combined with Adam Smith’s famous «invisible hand» of the free market. It’s a chestnut of libertarian rhetoric that problems will resolve themselves with market-driven private-sector fixes, and that those fixes both will be more effective and will better promote freedom. This topic explores that idea … Read the rest
Update: this is a joke. Cpt Hill never said any of this. It was lifted from Col Jessep’s monologue in the film A Few Good Men. It would be an appropriate response to Rick Santorum’s answer to Cpt Hill’s question, but it is entirely fictional. I’d thought it would be obvious, but it seems that quoting a movie that’s almost 20 years old gets lost. I apologize to anyone who earnestly believed these to be Cpt Hill’s words.
Stephen … Read the rest
On Thursday, nine contenders for the GOP nomination for president participated in a televised question-and-answer session hosted by Fox News and Google. As usual, I hesitate to refer to these events as «debates» because they really aren’t debates. There’s not enough time allotted to permit more than a soundbite on each issue and there are few real chances for rebuttal. They are all about the personalities and very little about the principles and issues.
Here is my take on the … Read the rest
Tonight at 6pm Pacific/9pm Eastern time, nine GOP presidential hopefuls will take the stage in a live question and answer session intended to familiarize Americans with the candidates. This will be the seventh so-called debate in the 2012 presidential primary season, and the second to include Governor Gary Johnson, who appeared in the first of these debates back in May but who has not been permitted to participate since. In a surprise (but welcome) decision on … Read the rest
Recently I listened to a Commonwealth Club discussion with Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch titled WWLD: What Would Libertarians Do? Gillespie and Welch are co-editors of Reason magazine, which I’ve never read, but is reputed to have a strong libertarian bent. The topic is of interest to me, as I have mixed feelings about libertarians. In the 1990s I was a registered member of the Libertarian Party. I voted for Harry Browne in the presidential elections of 1996… Read the rest
Most politicians deserve a little name-calling, but there are two labels — really two variations on the same label — that have become popular lately and really get my goat. They are RINO and DINO: Republican In Name Only and Democrat In Name Only. Even Libertarians call other Libertarians LINOs, Greens have their GINOs, and probably even Independents who get called IINOs even though I have no idea how to pronounce it.
I make an exception for the use of … Read the rest
After taking a shot at Rick Santorum about the apparent incongruity between his strict constructionist stance and his zeal for federal restrictions on abortions, I was gratified to see that I wasn’t the only one to notice. The Volokh Conspiracy, one of the best law-oriented blogs out there, today has a post by David Kopel pointing out that Santorum and four other Republican presidential candidates have signed a pledge that states almost in the same breath that they will appoint … Read the rest
I challenge anyone to provide a reputable source for this supposed quote attributed to GOP presidential hopeful Rick Santorum:
Abortion in any form is wrong, except for my wife. If your wife’s life was at stake and the only thing that could save her was an abortion, well, too bad. Your wife will have to die. It was different with my wife. You see, I love her. I don’t even know your wife’s name.
I call bullshit on this whole … Read the rest