Author Archive: Glenn Reynolds

ICYMI: “RULE OF LAW:”

OPEN THREAD: Ring out the weekend.

FIRST, DO NO HARM: CT Scans Projected to Result in 100,000 New Cancers in The US. “A team in the US and the UK now predicts that low levels of ionizing radiation from CT scans could theoretically account for 5 percent of all new cancer diagnoses in the US. CT scans conducted in 2023 could be responsible for an estimated 103,000 future cases of cancer.”

THE U.S.S. ROBERT HEINLEIN: A friend writes:

The U.S.S. Robert A. Heinlein Campaign!

We want the new Secretary of the Navy – John Phelan — to name a future DDG-51 Flight III
destroyer for Robert A. Heinlein.

************************
It is the prerogative of the Secretary of the Navy to name Navy vessels. Navy policy is to name destroyers for deceased members of the Navy.

We want the new Secretary of the Navy – John Phelan — to name a future DDG-51 Flight III destroyer for Robert A. Heinlein.

This would happen if lots of people write asking him to name a future Arleigh
Burke-class destroyer for Heinlein.

Phelan’s address is:
The Honorable John Phelan
Secretary of the Navy
Room 4E686
Defense Pentagon
Washington, D.C. 20301

More information may be found at the Campaign website.

www.USSRobertAHeinlein.com.

Good idea. Endorsed.

HAPPY EASTER:

JOSH HAMMER: End US Taxpayer Support for the Higher Education Gravy Train.

For decades, American institutions of higher education have benefited from extraordinary taxpayer largesse. Federal government grants and other forms of direct taxpayer subsidizations of universities are legion. The federal government itself also has a near-monopoly on the market for economically ruinous student loans — the very loans that are themselves disproportionately responsible for abetting the modern four-year college’s misbegotten status as a necessary rite of passage to achieve the American dream. Capital gains of major university endowments are also taxed at the miniscule rate of 1.4% — a fraction of the taxation rate to which the endowments would be subject were they operating as any other type of business or investment fund.

This favorable governmental treatment of higher education is the backend “quo.” But policymakers predicated that “quo,” long ago, on the corresponding “quid”: American universities, in educating young Americans and instilling in them a love of their families, congregations, nation and God Almighty, conduce to the common good and therefore deserve direct public support.

The basic problem with this argument, in the year 2025, is that — quite simply — it is indescribably and laughably out of touch with reality.

Indeed.

THE JUDICIARY GETS TO MAKE LAW ACCORDING TO WHIM. THE PRESIDENT MUST JUST MEEKLY GO ALONG WHEN IT DOES. Justice Alito Dissents: “Both the Executive and the Judiciary have an obligation to follow the law.” Justice Alito also questions whether the Court even had jurisdiction to act.

Acting as if the Presidency is a co-equal branch with its own powers, responsibilities, and immunities is abandonment of the “rule of law” because shut up.

WHO DOES HE THINK HE IS, CHUCK SCHUMER?