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SCOTUS and vagrancy

Good news for West Coast denizens. The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear an appeal challenging a judicial ruling that established a de facto constitutional right to vagrancy. Wouldn’t it be rich if conservative Justices rescue progressive cities from themselves? (City of Grants Pass v. Johnson.) A panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in 2022 blocked the Oregon town of Grants Pass from enforcing “anti-camping” laws on public property. The judges said the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment prohibits cities from arresting or imposing penalties on ...

Houthi strikes; Mid-east crisis

The reality is that the war in Gaza has already spread through the region. The question is how far it extends and how intense it grows. Those involved are calculating and calibrating; they have in mind small blazes, rather than a regional conflagration. But their confidence that they can take containable risks may prove misplaced. Crises are feeding into each other, and the likelihood of missteps is rising. Thursday night’s US and UK strikes on Houthi positions in Yemen were taken after diplomacy and threats failed to halt sustained attacks on commercial vessels in the Red Sea and ...

Jobs market and politics

It’s an election year, so every economic report is going to be filtered through the lens of political benefit. President Biden thus celebrated Friday’s Labor Department report that employers added a solid 216,000 jobs in December, but below the top line there are signs of a softening labor market. The question is whether government spending can sustain the job growth amid a weakening economy and business investment. The unemployment rate last month held steady at 3.7 percent, but the labor force participation rate (62.5) and employment to population ratio (60.1) both fell by an ...

War risk in Middle East

From the moment that the full extent of the 7 October atrocities by Hamas in southern Israel became evident, the specter of an ensuing regional conflict loomed in the background. Since then, attention has been fixed on Israel’s pummeling of Gaza, where the death toll passed 22,000 this week, according to Palestinian health authorities. Yet in recent weeks the risk of a greater conflagration has grown. The assassination of the senior Hamas official Saleh al-Arouri in Beirut marks a new and dangerous moment, as Israel (which did not publicly claim responsibility) will have known. ...

Marijuana pardons

President Biden on Friday demonstrated the proper use of presidential clemency power when he pardoned thousands of people who had been convicted of various nonviolent marijuana violations on federal land. The reasons he cited included addressing racial disparities in drug prosecution and sentencing, and that’s an important point. Criminal laws in theory cover all Americans equally, but in practice, laws punishing possession or use of small amounts of cannabis have been enforced over the years disproportionately against Black people. Unequal enforcement can render a colorblind law ...

Tort law and anti-Israel protesters

Normally we wouldn’t wish trial lawyers on our worst enemy. But as anti-Israel demonstrations grow increasingly lawless, the plaintiffs bar could help. Why not hit protesters who break the law and keep Americans from getting to their destination with a tort liability suit for false imprisonment? On Wednesday, anti-Israel protesters blocked access to JFK and LAX airports in New York and Los Angeles, respectively. The laws of New York and California, like most states, recognize the tort. While there is no precedent applying this tort to road-blocking protesters, it fits the offense. ...