GOVERNMENT AS RACKET: Accused of ‘Terrorism’ for Putting Legal Materials Online.

Carl Malamud believes in open access to government records, and he has spent more than a decade putting them online. You might think states would welcome the help.

But when Mr. Malamud’s group posted the Official Code of Georgia Annotated, the state sued for copyright infringement. Providing public access to the state’s laws and related legal materials, Georgia’s lawyers said, was part of a “strategy of terrorism.”

A federal appeals court ruled against the state, which has asked the Supreme Court to step in. On Friday, in an unusual move, Mr. Malamud’s group, Public.Resource.Org, also urged the court to hear the dispute, saying that the question of who owns the law is an urgent one, as about 20 other states have claimed that parts of similar annotated codes are copyrighted.

The issue, the group said, is whether citizens can have access to “the raw materials of our democracy.”

As Rob Merges and I wrote some time ago, the copyright power (along with the patent power) has been stretched far beyond its original purpose.

HMM: China cuts its holdings of US debt to lowest in 2 years.

The largest foreign owner of U.S. debt reduced the level by just shy of $20.5 billion, a slight decrease that brought the total holdings down to $1.12 trillion. But the move represents a continued pattern of declines that comes as the two sides have been unable to hammer out a long-term trade agreement and instead have been engaging in a tit-for-tat tariff fight that has escalated in recent days.

In the 12-month period ending March, the latest month for which data is available, China’s stockpile of U.S. government notes, bonds and bills fell by $67.2 billion, a 5.6% decline. The total has fallen by some $200 billion since the peak in 2012 and now represents 7% of total U.S. debt outstanding, compared to 12% previously, according to UBS.

The threat of the nation either not buying Treasurys or engaging in outright sales has shaken the bond market before.

It isn’t often appreciated, but Beijing has indeed been manipulating the value of the yuan — up versus the dollar, not down. Otherwise the country could wind up with a yuge balance-of-payments problem. Trade insecurity could work against that effort, which is just one more lever in Trump’s trade negotiations.

WAIT, THINGS OTHER THAN MAN CAN IMPACT THE CLIMATE? Ben Franklin was right about Iceland’s Laki volcano. An enormous volcanic eruption on Iceland in 1783-84 didn’t cause an extreme summer heat wave in Europe, but it did trigger an unusually cold winter, according to a new study.

I CERTAINLY HOPE SO: Goldrush: Can Lunar Mining Become Big Business?

Amid the recent boom in extraterrestrial exploration, a new frontier for private companies and space agencies appears to have emerged: mining the moon for precious resources.

Once thought to be a beautiful but largely barren rock, the moon is now believed by some to be a treasure trove of rich materials that could play a vital role in the Earth’s future.

For instance, space agencies hoping to mine the moon say oxygen in its regolith – or lunar soil – could be used to power life support and fuel rockets in space, while rare metals could be ferried back to Earth to be used in everything from gadgets to construction.

What has got the industry most excited, however, is the Helium-3
isotope that is present in moondust, which has been touted as a
possible key to safe nuclear energy.

But despite its hidden treasure, is mining the moon a viable commercial project?

Some private companies think so. Among them is the Cape
Canaveral-based Moon Express, which has raised $12.5m (£9.7m) in late
2018 to fund its plan to put robotic landers on the moon with the goal
of sending samples back to Earth.

The ultimate goal is to commercialise the resources, according to boss
Bob Richards. “We’ll make some of it available to scientific
research,” he said. “But we also plan to commoditise it ourselves.”

Good.

90 MINUTES FROM NEW YORK TO PARIS LONDON: Aerospace firm led by former SpaceX and Blue Origin employees reveals plan to build plane that will hit 5 TIMES the speed of sound.

HAWAIIAN JUDGES TO HAVE CORONARIES IN 3…2…1…: Trump Plans To Invoke Insurrection Act To Boot Illegal Immigrants.

BUT OF COURSE: Facebook Blocks Trump Board Member for Pro-Life Post Contrasting Trans and Pro-Choice Arguments.

ALL RUSSIA-HOAX ROADS LEAD BACK TO HILLARY: Maybe instead of the Steele Dossier, it should be called Sydney’s Dossier?

IT’S NOT JUST MEASLES: What You Should Know About Vaccines for Adults.

We’re used to kids needing lots of shots to ward off lots of illnesses, but what about adults? The CDC recommends that adults get multiple vaccines for conditions ranging from tetanus to influenza to cervical cancer. The shots can be a bit trickier to keep track of, as many adults go to the doctor less frequently than kids do, but those vaccinations are equally important for staying healthy.

“Many adults are not aware of what vaccines they actually need,” says Dr. Pamela Rockwell, an associate professor of family medicine at the University of Michigan who works with the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. “That is also balanced by physician unawareness of what vaccines they should be recommending. It’s gotten very complicated, and it is difficult to keep up with all the changes.”

True.

WINNING: Trump Gets Another Judge on the Ninth Circuit Over Democrat Objections.

IS QATAR BANKROLLING U.S. COLLEGES FOR BDS SUPPORT? WATCH GROUP JOINS PROBE: “Judicial Watch’s petition is just the latest in an ongoing battle that Zachor Legal Institute has filed to access funding or donations records from Texas A&M.”

OPEN THREAD: Party on, dudes.

UNEXPECTEDLY! Research Ties Marijuana Legalization to Car Accidents, Injuries.

WARNER’S TOUGH CHINA STANCE EXPOSES BIDEN WEAKNESS: Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) is the ranking minority members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, so he has received countless classified briefings over the years concerning China. In a speech at the Brookings Institution, he acknowledged that those briefings changed his mind about the Asian giant.

The China Warner now sees isn’t the same China former Vice President Joe Biden talked about earlier this month during a campaign stop in Iowa, the China Biden says isn’t a competitor for the U.S. Warner didn’t mention Biden by name at Brookings, but then he didn’t have to. Seems clear to a lot of people that Joe screwed up.

WELL, THAT MAKES SENSE: Lowering blood pressure may decrease stroke-related brain bleeding.

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THIS IS THE 21st CENTURY, YOU KNOW: Plans to build 3,000 mph plane that will fly passengers from New York to London in 90 minutes.

Faster, please.

DISTURBING BIT OF TRIVIA: IN 2003 INTERVIEW, JAMES COMEY ADMITTED TO VOTING COMMUNIST IN THE ’70s – JUST LIKE BRENNAN.

The author, Chris Smith, wrote that, “Comey has been savaged by William Safire and lauded by Chuck Schumer; just what kind of Republican is he, anyway?”

Comey apparently howled with laughter.

He explained, “In college, I was left of center, and through a gradual process I found myself more comfortable with a lot of the ideas and approaches the Republicans were using.” He voted for Carter in 1980, but in ’84, “I voted for Reagan—I’d moved from Communist to whatever I am now. I’m not even sure how to characterize myself politically. Maybe at some point, I’ll have to figure it out.”

Perhaps his “gradual” move away from communism had something to do with his chosen career path. It may have dawned on him that communist leanings might be a serious disqualifier when one is hoping for a career in government law enforcement, especially during the Cold War.

It shouldn’t really surprise that Obama would nominate former communists to two of the most important offices in the U.S. government. Underneath it all, Obama really is a socialist – who surrounded himself with other socialists like Bill Ayers and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

Speaking of Obama, his former vice president is prepared to move even further left: “Joe Biden breaks with Obama in moving to left,” claims The Hill today.

Further left than the man who prompted Newsweek to blare on its cover shortly after his inauguration that “We Are All Socialists Now?” What could go wrong?

UPDATE: According to this “fact check” site, this post is wrong because Comey was calling Jimmy Carter a Communist. Their evidence is . . . the very quote reproduced verbatim above.

A VISIONARY OF PUBLIC ORDER: George Kelling, R.I.P.

Kelling and Wilson ended the Atlantic essay with a plea to return to the “night watchman” role of policing. That model, stemming from America’s colonial period, focused on discretionary order maintenance. It had been supplanted in the 1960s by the rule-bound, rapid-response model of policing, whereby officers in patrol cars raced to crime scenes as quickly as possible. Kelling and Wilson urged departments to put cops back on foot patrol.  In a now-overlooked but prescient coda, they rejected the emerging libertarian consensus that authorities should ignore disreputable behavior—such as drug dealing and use, public prostitution, and illegal gambling—that allegedly hurts no one. If such behavior occurs en masse, it destroys whole neighborhoods. The police, they concluded, have a responsibility to protect communities as well as individuals.

The first big test of the Broken Windows concept occurred in New York City’s subway system in the 1980s. The Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) had lost control to graffiti vandals who defaced entire subway cars. New Yorkers who could not flee to private automobiles or to the suburbs cowered underground under a pall of ugliness and crime. In 1984, the MTA announced that it would eradicate subway graffiti, which it did by cleaning every car when it returned to the train yards, thus denying vandals the satisfaction of seeing their spray-painted aggressions touring the city. By 1989, the MTA declared victory. A relieved public returned to the now graffiti-free subways in ever-higher numbers, creating an informal bulwark against subterranean crime.

Ray Kelly drew on Broken Windows insights during his first tour as New York police commissioner under Mayor David Dinkins, cracking down on the infamous “squeegee men” who “offered” to clean the car windows of drivers stuck in New York’s bridge and tunnel traffic. In 1994, Broken Windows theory went citywide under newly elected mayor Rudolph Giuliani and his police commissioner, William Bratton. Bratton and Kelling had collaborated at the Kennedy School of Government in the 1980s, studying how midlevel police commanders can best use their authority. As New York commissioner, Bratton targeted public prostitution, aggressive begging, and, most significantly, subway turnstile-jumping. The trains themselves may no longer have symbolized a city out of control, but the sight of youth defiantly breaking the rules with impunity underscored the perception that the forces of anarchy still ruled over the forces of civilization in New York. Bratton instructed the transit cops to arrest the fare-beaters, rather than standing by passively waiting for more “serious” crime. Many of the fare thieves were wanted precisely for those serious crimes, including rape and murder. Criminals, it turned out, do not scrupulously obey one set of laws while violating another—they are polymorphous offenders. Subway riders cheered on the arrests, which signaled a broader determination to restore order.

The Broken Windows concept spread beyond policing. Business-improvement districts seized on Kelling’s work to revive central business cores, wrenching trash- and graffiti-filled streets back from chaos. Without the advances in policing and urban management that Broken Windows ushered in, New York City would never have experienced its 1990s economic renaissance.

Read the whole thing.

NO SAFETY: Ticks and Lyme Disease Are a Threat for Cities, Too.

THE 21st CENTURY IS NOT WORKING OUT AS I HAD HOPED. Transgender Tragedy: This Baby Died Because the Mother’s Medical Records Listed Her as Male.

THE MAN WHO BUILT THE WALL STREET JOURNAL EDITORIAL PAGE: Warren Phillips kept it a voice of conservative reason even as other papers were tilting left.

Warren H. Phillips, one of the three or four greatest figures in the 129-year history of The Wall Street Journal, died last Friday at age 92. He was a giant of American journalism, as his obituaries attest. But he also played a mighty role, largely unheralded, in the promotion of a particular brand of responsible, thoughtful, and lively conservatism.

* * * * * * * *

After a Dow Jones board member complained about the paper’s “right-wing” views, Kilgore wrote to him: “The country has many newspapers and magazines expounding the liberal point of view. What it doesn’t need is a publication that hews to the middle of the road, writing ‘on the one hand’ this and ‘on the other hand’ that. It needs a publication that can articulate, with force and eloquence and in well-reasoned fashion, the conservative position and philosophy on issues before the country.”

That’s what the Journal did throughout the 20th century and still does. But it’s interesting to note that, during this time, many newspapers and magazines with conservative traditions were abandoning their ideological moorings and joining the liberal pack. Robert McCormick’s Chicago Tribune, once a feisty voice of Midwest conservatism, transformed itself into something barely distinguishable from The New York Times. During the 1960s, when the Los Angeles Times embarked on its program to turn itself into a high-quality paper (wonderfully accomplished by Otis Chandler), it also abandoned its traditional conservatism and embraced a kind of rote liberalism.

But the Journal remained true to its heritage, in large measure because of the devotion and fortitude of Warren Phillips and a few others.

Read the whole thing.

DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: Christian Student Forced to Write Islamic Conversion Creed Appeals Case to Supreme Court.