AND THE NINTH CIRCUIT ISN’T EVEN IN CHICAGO:  The Dead Can Vote–At Least on the Ninth Circuit.

HOT OFF THE PRESS: A few days ago, my colleague Peter Kirsanow and I filed this amicus curiae brief requesting the Supreme Court to take the case of Metcalf v. United States. It argues that part of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr., Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009 is unconstitutional. I am pretty confident that under any fair reading of the Constitution, we are right: Congress’s authority to prohibit slavery under the 13th Amendment does not give it the authority to criminalize bias crimes untethered to the goal of eliminating slavery and preventing its return.  Of course, being right doesn’t always get you Supreme Court review.

If you want to know how it feels to advocate on behalf of someone found by a jury to have committed a heinous crime, the answer is that it feels okay: When fighting the good fight, advocates of limited government do not always get to choose their allies.  There’s a principle involved here.

ERIC HOFFER’S BIRTHDAY: On this day in either 1898 or 1902, depending upon whom you ask, Eric Hoffer, the only longshoreman-philosopher ever to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom, was born in the Bronx. Hoffer was the author of The True Believer, an inquiry into the nature of mass movements. His other works include The Ordeal of Change and The Temper of Our Time.

Hoffer wrote one of the greatest lines I’ve ever read, “Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.”

He wasn’t thinking of the Southern Poverty Law Center when he said it. But, alas, the shoe fits.

If you know one of those poor souls who still thinks of the SPLC as David against the Ku Klux Klan’s Goliath, have him or her consider this: The SPLC has accumulated an endowment of about $477 million. Meanwhile, for all practical purposes, the KKK was vanquished decades ago. The remnant isn’t even a remnant.  It’s just a handful of thugs who adopted the name, knowing that it would shock people. To keep the SPLC’s gravy train rolling it has had to frighten well-heeled donors into believing that the country is crawling with other hate groups. Not a pretty picture.

If you haven’t been keeping up with the latest news on the SPLC, try here, here, and here. For the most recent news of Hoffer, you’ll have to be satisfied with this.

DON’T FIGHT, GUYS.  I MAY NOT HAVE THAT MUCH TIME:  Human Longevity sues genome pioneer J. Craig Venter, alleging theft of trade secrets.

HEY, BARN:  Don Knotts was born on this day in 1924 in Morgantown, West Virginia.

BUT WE STOPPED GOING BACK A FEW YEARS LATER:  On this day in history, July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon with these words from Armstrong,  “Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.”

Technically, the first steps on the moon were taken hours later on July 21st, not July 20th.  But that is only because Greenwich Mean Time was used to measure the time.  For Americans, it was still the 20th.

TWO, THREE, MANY CALIFORNIAS … OR MAYBE JUST ONE:  John Fund has a few things on the vote that won’t happen in the Golden State.

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY: THE FAILED PLOT TO KILL HITLER: The July 20^th Plot was not the first attempt to assassinate Nazi Germany’s Führer or even the first by the particular set of conspirators. But unlike most previous efforts, this one came close.

By 1944, the war was going badly for Germany. Victory seemed impossible. A number of German military officers and civilians decided they’d had enough of Hitler and Nazism. Rather than suffer another devastating defeat at the hands of the allies, they wanted a negotiated peace. Hitler’s death, they felt, was a necessary step to get there.

The leaders among the military officers—including General Friedrich Olbricht and Major General Henning von Tresckow—tended to have in common that they were German nationalists, conservatives, and aristocrats. The civilians included former Leipzig mayor Carl Friedrich Goerdeler.

Opposition to Nazism’s policies towards Jews may have been secondary in their minds to just ending the calamitous war by any means necessary. But it was a factor–at least for some. Both Tresckow and Goerdeler expressed such opposition. Some of the participants were part of the Kreisau Circle.

The key figure in the plot was a 36-year-old career officer, Col. Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg—a serious Catholic, conservative and aristocrat. It was he who carried the briefcase containing the bomb into Hitler’s secret headquarters in East Prussia where daily briefings were held. Stauffenberg set it down near where Hitler was to sit and excused himself for a telephone call.

Stauffenberg thought he’d been successful. He headed straight to Berlin, where he had hoped to help execute an elaborate plan to take over the reins of government. But he was mistaken. The bomb killed four individuals in the room. An additional 20 were injured, some seriously. But Hitler’s injuries were only slight. The briefcase is believed to have been moved a bit before it went off.

The conspirators—often including those with only remote connections to the plot—were rounded up. Stauffenberg, Olbricht, and Tresckow were dead by the next day. Altogether, more than 7000 were arrested, and 4980 executed.

Among the dead was Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, who may or may not have been an active participant of the plot. He was reportedly given the option of (1) pleading his case to Hitler himself; (2) being tried by the so-called People’s Court; or (3) suicide. He chose suicide. The public was told that he had died of a heart attack or a cerebral embolism. He was given a state funeral.

Footnote to history: Stauffenberg’s son, just a boy at the time, went on to become a general in the West German army. “For me,” he said, “there is no question that the plot has saved a little of the honour of Germany.”

SLOWLY BUT SURELY AMERICA IS RE-LEARNING THE LESSON I THOUGHT IT HAD FIGURED OUT DECADES AGO: RAISING THE MINIMUM WAGE CAN HURT THOSE WITH THE LOWEST SKILLS. Here are several recent articles on the subject.

Mostly it’s the young who get hurt. If you can’t get your foot on the first rung of the employment ladder, it’s really hard to get to the second.

Another problem for the young (especially college students) may be well-meaning laws that make it harder for employers to select the employees they want and to dismiss employees who aren’t working out. Too much protection can be worse than too little for job applicants with no track record. Hiring them can be high risk for employers. As a result, they don’t get hired. The rise of unpaid internships is likely in part a market response to this problem.

EVERYTHING IS ILLEGAL:  Laws that presumptively prohibit “disparate impact” require employers, landlords, and recipients of federal funds to justify to a government agency just about EVERYTHING they do.  Maybe even everything.

CALIFORNIA:  Nothing makes me want to vote to break California into three states more than being told by the California Supreme Court that I can’t vote to break California into three states.

THE TRANSGENDER POSSE COMES FOR SCARLETT JOHANSSON:  In fairness, she must be used to these posses by now.

Related (From Ed): With Johansson having backed out of starring as a trans man, it’s quite possible that project is about to be shelved. But as this article, written before she caved to the outrage mob notes, the character that Johansson would have played was, well, quite a character: The Amazing life of transgender gangster Mr. Gill.

THE CHAPPAQUIDDICK INCIDENT:  On this day in 1969, Sen. Ted Kennedy drove his car (and with it his Presidential aspirations) off a bridge.  Forty years later in 2009, on the occasion of Kennedy’s death, Mark Steyn wrote Speaking Ill of the Ted.  It’s still a good read (so good that part of it was incorporated into the script of the Chappaquiddick movie).

BLAME THE MESSENGER: A large, longitudinal, randomized, controlled study recently found that Tennessee’s pre-kindergarten program for low-income children had modestly NEGATIVE effects on academic achievement once the children were in the third grade. The program participants also had more disciplinary problems than non-participants, most of whom had stayed at home that year rather than participating in some other program. This is, of course, disappointing, especially since the study had found positive effects when measured at the end of the pre-kindergarten year. But those effects faded over time and turned negative.

There are several different, plausible explanations for these results. I will leave it to you to read the study or its summary for that. Instead, I want to draw your attention to yet another case of bullying researchers who get politically incorrect results. Authors Dale Farran and Mark Lipsey commented on the vitriol to which they have been subjected:

[Our] findings were not welcome.  So much so that it has been difficult to get the results published.  Our first attempt was reviewed by pre-k advocates who had disparaged our findings when they first came out in a working paper – we know that because their reviews repeated word-for-word criticisms made in their prior blogs and commentary.  We are grateful for an open-minded editor who allowed our recent paper summarizing the results of this study to be published (after, we should note, a very thorough peer review and 17 single-spaced pages of responses to questions raised by reviewers).  We are also appreciative of the objective assessment and attention to detail represented in the Straight Talk review.

It is, of course, understandable that people are skeptical of results that do not confirm the prevailing wisdom, but the vitriol with which our work has been greeted is beyond mere scientific concern.  Social science research can only be helpful to policy makers if it presents findings openly and objectively, even when unwelcome.

We share with our colleagues a commitment to the goal of providing a better life for poor children.  Blind commitment to one avenue for attaining that goal, however, is unnecessarily limiting.  If pre-k is not working as hoped and intended, we need to roll up our sleeves and figure out what will work, with solid research to guide that effort.

Here’s a question worth knowing the answer to: How much of the vitriol was coming from individuals with a financial stake in the continuation of government-subsidized pre-kindergarten programs for low-income children?  As always, the more that gets spent on any government program, the harder it is to turn the spigot off.

By the way, as one might guess, there is similar vitriol aimed at researchers—like UCLA’s Richard Sander—who question the effectiveness of race-preferential admissions at increasing the number of minority professionals.  Some of it comes from people whose jobs depend on maintaining the status quo.

IT’S NOT JUST FEINSTEIN:  Democrats are dumping moderates.

NOT YOUR GRANDFATHER’S CALIFORNIA DEMOCRATIC PARTY: As a result of California’s “jungle primary” system, the two candidates for U.S. Senator on the November ballot—Dianne Feinstein and Kevin de León—are both Democrats. The L.A. Times reports that last night, the Democratic Party’s Executive Committee voted to endorse De León over long-time incumbent Feinstein. The vote was a smack down for Feinstein—65% for De León, 7% for Feinstein and 28% for no endorsement.

Democratic activists are no mood for Feinstein’s reputation for pragmatism (and many have said so).  They want a real leftist like the 51-year-old De León.  And (surprise!) they want someone younger than the 85-year-old Feinstein.

So far at least, California voters have a different view. The latest poll (June 29) shows Feinstein ahead of De León 46% to 24%.

HOW THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION MADE IT TOUGH FOR TEACHERS TO MAINTAIN ORDER IN THE CLASSROOM:  Over at the Volokh Conspiracy.

ON THIS DAY IN 1890, WYOMING BECAME A STATE:  There’s an interesting backstory here:  The Wyoming Territory’s constitution had been the first to guarantee women the right to vote.  But when Wyoming initially applied for statehood, this created controversy.  Fearing that women in long-established states would be emboldened by Wyoming’s example, some Members of Congress initially insisted that Wyoming withdraw women’s right to vote. But the Wyoming legislature stood its ground and cabled back to Congressional leaders, “We will remain out of the Union one hundred years rather than come in without the women.”

Congress eventually relented, and before the turn of the century, there were four women’s suffrage states–Wyoming, Utah, Colorado and Idaho.

THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION SHOULD CONDUCT A “DISPARATE IMPACT INVENTORY”: In Ricci v. DeStefano (2009), a Title VII case that concerned the tension between liability for intentional discrimination and liability for disparate impact liability, Justice Scalia began his concurrence this way:

I join in the Court’s opinion in full, but write separately to observe that its resolution of this dispute merely postpones the evil day on which the Court will have to confront the question: Whether, or to what extent, are the disparate-impact provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 consistent with the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection?

I gave a talk at the Federalist Society’s Executive Branch Review a couple of months ago entitled It’s Time for the Executive Branch to Conduct a “Disparate Impact Inventory” (The link is to a written version of the talk w/ a few footnotes added). Essentially, I said that Scalia’s doubts about the constitutionality of disparate impact liability need to be taken seriously.  The Trump Administration should begin evaluating the issue for each of the anti-discrimination laws and policies that use disparate impact liability. Does that use violate the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection or not?  (More here.)

WHY SHOULD A SINGLE FEDERAL JUDGE BE ABLE TO MAKE LAW FOR THE WHOLE COUNTRY?:  Funny you should ask, since Justice Thomas recently asked that same question.

LOW UNEMPLOYMENT & RISING WAGES?  THAT’S HORRIBLE!!:  Or at least that’s what CNBC thinks.

THE SUPREME COURT SWEEPSTAKES:  Jonathan Adler discusses the top candidates … or at least the candidates that somebody said were at the top.

UPDATE:  Paul Mirengoff discusses the same four.

TOXIC MASCULINITY, THAI-STYLE:  The ultimate sacrifice.   (Update on rescue operation here.)

ALL THINGS VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE:  Dr. Bastiat on Ricochet goes to get a haircut and learns of the small businesses that never were.

The damage wrought by excessive red tape for business start ups is mostly unseen.  Even would-be small business owners never know how things would have turned out if they had been allowed to follow their dreams.

IS THAT A RECORD?:  Sessions withdrew 24 guidances on Tuesday, the vast majority from the Obama Era.

There are more that need to go–including the school discipline guidance.  But Tuesday’s action looks like real progress.