Suchergebnisse

In its wise Order of 26 January 2024, the ICJ managed to make a virtue out of a necessity: Israel was not prohibited from continuing its combat operations but was reminded of its strict compliance with international humanitarian law and its obligation to avoid genocide. At the same time, the ICJ reiterated the requirement to respect the most fundamental rights and the core of humanitarian law to all warring factions. Despite still essentially being a court for inter-state disputes – it put the individual, the human being, at the centre. Henceforth, the ICJ's order of provisional measures is a Solomonic decision at its best and a further step towards the "humanization of international law".

Almost a week after Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel on October 7, China's foreign minister, Wang Yi, called for a global peace conference and a ceasefire. China's messages can be boiled down to three main points: 1) condemning attacks on both Israeli and Palestinian civilians and the breaking of international law, 2) calling for dialogue between the warring sides, and 3) emphasising the necessity of a two-state solution. China's messaging follows a similar pattern expressed after previous Israel-Palestine escalations, whereby Beijing refuses to take sides explicitly, urging restraint and promoting peace talks. Chinese-Palestinian & Chinese-Israeli relations: China's 'neutrality' leans in support of Palestine, at least rhetorically. While insisting on both Israel and Palestine's right to statehood, Wang Yi ...

On Thursday, news broke that the German government had agreed to incorporating the previously rejected Crisis Regulation into the EU's new asylum and migration pact. The decision was a radical change of course since Germany had previously consistently opposed its inclusion. Framed as allowing for more 'flexibility' in case of migratory surges, the Crisis Regulation's adoption will, in effect, suspend the EU asylum system as we know it for the time being, given that recorded sea arrivals are currently nearing the 2015 levels. A crisis in need of regulation, if you will.
In this blogpost, I highlight the dangerous fallacy that underpins our tolerance for the illegality that has come to characterize contemporary border control. In particular, our failure to oppose the constant expansion of the limits of the law that occurs in the name of crisis and political necessity rests on the mistaken assumption that we have nothing to lose in this race to the bottom.

Since 2018, Swiss courts have become regular sites of criminal trials against climate activists who engage in various forms of non-violent protest to obtain effective climate action from their government and raise public awareness. Since the autumn of 2018, we have recorded approximately 30 non-violent forms of climate protest and civil disobedience across Switzerland, leading to at least 200 trials in Swiss criminal courts. In this contribution, we highlight three themes that have emerged in the trials of climate activists: First, the Federal Supreme Court has closed the door to the use of the necessity defense to justify civil disobedience in the name of the climate emergency. Second, at least some Swiss judges and courts are open to considering and applying the case law of the ECtHR. Third, the idea of civil disobedience remains deeply contested in the courts, as it is considered by the authorities to be antithetical to the Swiss model of democracy.

There are few words in contemporary foreign policy debates that are more abused than "internationalist."Internationalism should refer to a foreign policy approach that prioritizes resolving conflicts peacefully, respecting international law, strengthening international institutions, and eschewing coercive policies as much as possible. As it is commonly used in Washington today, however, internationalism often means almost exactly the opposite. It is a euphemism that advocates of U.S. "leadership" use to describe their preferred policies of pursuing dominance, dictating terms to other states, and routinely using force or the threat of force to get their way. The label internationalist has become code for supporting militarism and interference in the affairs of other countries, which is just about as far from what it used to mean as it is possible to get. The internationalist label is usually paired with and opposed to the "isolationist" slur used to dismiss critics of U.S. foreign policy. To be considered an internationalist in Washington, one needs to be comfortable endorsing the extensive use of American power, including and especially the use of hard power. Expressing doubts or asking questions about the wisdom or necessity of this extensive use of power is one of the quickest ways to earn the "isolationist" tag. According to this warped set of definitions, the so-called internationalists are the ones that seek to impose Washington's will on other nations while the "isolationists" are the ones that respect their rights and sovereignty. Even generally hawkish presidents will be accused of "isolationist" leanings if they "fail" to order military action somewhere, as we saw with Barack Obama and the red line episode in 2013. Meanwhile presidents will be praised for their "internationalism" when they order illegal attacks. It is common for analysts to conflate support for U.S. primacy with internationalism. Earlier this year, Foreign Policy magazine published a long article by Ash Jain classifying different foreign policy camps and putting them under the headings of "internationalist" or "non-internationalist." In one of the more bizarre examples of how this worked, the "unilateral internationalists" represented by the likes of John Bolton and Dick Cheney, were included among the internationalists because they were champions of power projection, but restrainers were deemed "non-internationalist" because they favored fewer commitments and a less ambitious overall strategy. Nothing could better demonstrate how absurd the contemporary use of "internationalist" has become when someone like Bolton, who has a record of despising international law and institutions, can be considered an internationalist while defenders of international law are not. The conflation of support for primacy with internationalism goes all the way back to the remaking of U.S. foreign policy in WWII. As Stephen Wertheim explained in Tomorrow the World: The Birth of U.S. Global Supremacy, "officials and intellectuals redefined armed supremacy as the epitome of internationalism and the core of international organization." That redefinition was made because internationalism had meant something profoundly different in the past. Unfortunately, the redefinition stuck, and the more older understanding of internationalism faded into obscurity. That has had serious long-term consequences for the conduct of U.S. foreign policy. The distortion of internationalism into a project of global power projection fed the worst impulses of U.S. policymakers. As Wertheim explained, "to install one's dominance in the name of internationalism is something else. It effectively turns one nation's military supremacy into the prerequisite for a decent world. This kind of internationalism denies that armed force can obstruct cooperation and provoke others. It also attenuates the value of international rules and bodies." Such a deformed, militarized internationalism will not be a stabilizing force, but will often become a threat to the international peace and security that its adherents claim to defend.As long as the world's leading power refuses to respect the limits of international law, it will always be a destabilizing force in the world and a contributor to future conflicts. A principled internationalist approach to the world requires that the U.S. not only follow the laws that it expects others to follow, but that it should also hold itself and its clients to the highest standards. Any attempts to carve out exceptions or to create loopholes for the U.S. and the states aligned with it will serve to undermine international law and encourage more violations. That is what is happening with the war in Gaza right now as the U.S. makes a mockery of international law by enabling a devastating military campaign that has already killed well over 10,000 civilians.Many self-described internationalists are quick to invoke international law and the U.N. Charter when it comes to the actions of U.S. adversaries, but then become suddenly mute when a U.S.-backed government begins trampling on the same things. The champions of the "rules-based order" evidently do not believe that international law applies to the U.S. and the governments that it arms and supports, and they have no intention of doing anything to hold those violators accountable. If the U.S. is going to take international law seriously, it can't keep doing this. Washington must not play favorites by giving some states a free pass to commit terrible crimes. The U.S. would benefit a great deal from the recovery of a genuinely internationalist approach to the world. It would still be deeply engaged around the world through commerce and diplomacy, but it would have a far less militarized and less coercive foreign policy. Because it would be taking sides in very few conflicts, it would be in a stronger position to act as an effective and trusted mediator in whatever conflicts did arise. If the U.S. made a habit of adhering to international law and did not selectively trample on it when expedient, it would likely find a much more receptive audience in foreign capitals when it appealed for their support in a dispute. The U.S. would not be cutting itself off from the world, but it would also not be overcommitted and constantly embroiled in wars, whether they were its own or those of its clients.Recovering an internationalism that prizes peace and cooperation rather than the pursuit of dominance and rivalry is crucial for the U.S. in the coming decades to face the global threats of pandemics and climate change. America and the other nations of the world can ill afford to squander this century in fruitless contests for supremacy. To that end, Americans need to rediscover the internationalist tradition that flourished in this country a century ago.

The cutoff of food, water, and fuel imposed on Gaza has created dire conditions for the Palestinians there in just the last six weeks. Soon, they could be starved to death.The trickle of aid that has been allowed in under international pressure is not nearly enough to sustain the civilian population. According to the World Food Program, only 10% of the necessary food is entering the Gaza Strip, and the people there now face an "immediate possibility of starvation." The WFP also warns that the "food infrastructure in Gaza is no longer functional," and what little food is available is being sold at inflated prices and much of it cannot be used because people have no means to cook it. There is a humanitarian catastrophe unfolding before our eyes in Gaza. People are not just starving, they are being starved, and it is happening with the support of our government.Human Rights Watch and legal scholars say Israel is committing war crimes by waging a "war of starvation" against civilians in Gaza. Insofar as Washington continues to assist Israel's military campaign and blockade, it is helping to enable it. The meager amounts of humanitarian aid that the Biden administration boasts about facilitating are a drop in the bucket of what the population needs, and at current rates they cannot stave off large-scale loss of innocent life. The need for a ceasefire and an emergency relief effort is undeniable and Washington's resistance to it is a potential death sentence for thousands of people. Starvation has been used as a weapon with disturbing frequency in several conflicts over the last decade from Syria and Yemen to Tigray and South Sudan. Governments typically use economic warfare and physical blockades to achieve their ends. The current blockade of Gaza involves both by effectively shutting down Gaza's economy and cutting it off from outside supplies. The forced starvation of a civilian population is a form of collective punishment. Israel has an obligation under the Fourth Geneva Convention "of ensuring the food and medical supplies of the population." The Israeli government is obviously not fulfilling that obligation, and instead it has been doing the opposite. It is not surprising that President Biden had nothing serious to say about any of this in his recent op-ed in The Washington Post. The president acknowledged that many innocent Palestinians have been killed in the war, but he said nothing about those responsible for killing them. Biden insists that there must be "no siege or blockade" while both are ongoing. He mentioned no consequences if the Israeli government ignores his list of things that "must" not happen. The Biden administration may have "called for respecting international humanitarian law," but it is not acting to uphold it and it is not holding violators accountable.The president has once again rejected the option of a ceasefire: "As long as Hamas clings to its ideology of destruction, a cease-fire is not peace." This fails to take seriously the devastating consequences that allowing the war to rage on will have for all parties. No one imagines that a ceasefire will resolve the conflict or immediately create conditions for a permanent settlement, but it is imperative for protecting the lives and health of millions of people facing death from starvation, disease, and conflict. As the political scientist Sarah Parkinson explained in Foreign Affairs, "A cease-fire is the only politically reasonable, security-enhancing, and morally defensible policy to advocate, especially if Washington has any hope of remaining a respected player in the Middle East." Opposing a ceasefire in this war is a profound strategic and moral error that will cost the United States dearly in the months and years to come. Biden stresses that the U.S. is aiding Israel in its self-defense, but self-defense does not give a state the unlimited right to do anything it wants. Adil Ahmad Haque wrote an incisive article on self-defense and proportionality in Just Security earlier this month, in which he said this: "Under the law of self-defense, even a legitimate aim must be set aside if it is outweighed by the harmful effects of the force necessary to achieve it. Even if Israel's right to self-defense is engaged, its current exercise of that right is disproportionate."If this war were happening almost anywhere else and if it didn't involve a U.S. client state, it is very likely that our government would insist on the necessity of a ceasefire and U.S. officials would be repeating that there is no military solution. It is only when the U.S. or a U.S.-backed government is fighting that Washington sees no merit in adhering to international law. Unfortunately, this looks like the U.S. is least interested in stopping the wars over which it has considerable influence, and it is most vocal in demanding ceasefires in wars where it has little or no clout. If millions of people were facing an immediate threat of starvation in some other conflict, the U.S. would be appealing to the belligerents to lay down their arms and to do everything possible to facilitate the delivery of life-saving aid. That is exactly what our government should be doing now in this war. Brief pauses in the fighting will not be enough to ensure the safe, consistent delivery of aid.Acting in self-defense doesn't free a government of its obligations under international law, and self-defense isn't a catch-all excuse for violating the law. Some political and military goals can't be reached at an acceptable cost. The harmful effects of waging this war are already too great to justify continuing it, and they will only get worse the longer that this war is allowed to continue.

Thomas A. Berry and Nicholas DeBenedetto


New York City has maintained a system of rent control since the 1940s. Property owners in the City are subject to a thicket of regulations that affect their ability to rent and limit their right to exclude—arguably the most fundamental right in the "bundle" of property rights. The cornerstone of the City's rent control regime is the Rent Stabilization Law (RSL) which was enacted in 1969 and has been amended on multiple occasions—most recently in June 2019. The RSL has been the subject of several lawsuits throughout the decades.
There are approximately one million units under the purview of the RSL, comprising half of all New York City apartments. The RSL authorizes a government board to set annual maximum rent increases for stabilized units. This board is required to consider tenants' ability to pay as one factor in setting rents, alongside owners' costs and housing affordability.
The RSL severely limits property owners' rights to occupy, use, change the use of, and dispose of their property. The RSL requires owners to renew tenants' leases in perpetuity with very few exceptions, and those exceptions are entirely within the tenants' control. Additionally, these renewal rights may be passed on to any member of a tenant's family who has lived in the tenant's apartment for two years.
Once a tenant occupies a stabilized unit, an owner may not retake possession of the apartment for personal use. Only upon a demonstration of "immediate and compelling necessity" may an owner reclaim just one of his or her units. And buildings held in the name of a corporate entity have no personal use allowance at all.
The RSL also severely restricts owners' rights regarding the buildings themselves. Owners may not withdraw their buildings from residential use, change their units to commercial rentals or cooperatives, leave their property vacant, or demolish their property.
A not‐​for‐​profit trade association representing many New York City apartment building owners sued to challenge the RSL in federal court, but the Second Circuit upheld the law. Now the owners are petitioning the Supreme Court to take their case. Cato, joined by the Manhattan Institute, has filed an amicus brief supporting that petition.
Our brief makes three key points. First, the Supreme Court's recent opinion in Cedar Point Nursery v. Hassid (2021) casts serious doubt on the constitutionality of the RSL, since the City has appropriated building owners' right to exclude and granted that right to third parties. All of the Supreme Court's precedents addressing the constitutionality of rent‐​control statutes long predate the per se rule for physical takings articulated in Cedar Point, which calls for those precedents to be reexamined.
Second, there is already a circuit split between the Eighth and Second Circuits over whether property owners can allege that rent control effects a per se taking under Cedar Point. We argue that the Eighth Circuit correctly followed the Supreme Court when it held that a per se takings claim could proceed against an eviction moratorium, while the Second Circuit erred here in denying plaintiffs' claim against New York City.
Finally, we argue that the Supreme Court should take this opportunity to reaffirm the foundational takings principle that government cannot require a subset of society to privately incur costs that should rightfully be borne by society as a whole. The RSL impermissibly imposes societal costs on property owners alone when it forces them to charge lower rental rates based on tenants' ability to pay. For all these reasons, the Supreme Court should take the case and ultimately reverse the Second Circuit.

With most through to another four years of office, in
their latest meeting Bossier Parish police jurors reverted to their typical
arrogance and obtuseness. Perhaps they should pay attention to the shape of their
future: what happened at the last Bossier City Council meeting.

Recent election results guaranteed nine jurors
would return to office. The one runoff that remains will send a new member to
the Jury since District 10 four-decade veteran Jerome
Darby retired, but vying as his replacement leading into the runoff is his
brother Democrat Julius Darby. Republican challenger Keith Sutton defeated
incumbent Republican Mac Plummer in
District 12, while the GOP's Pam Glorioso beat incumbent Democrat Charles
Gray in District 9.

But over the past two years, all jurors had
engaged in questionable, if not illegal, acts. They hired, knowing
full well it was against the law, Butch Ford as parish administrator, because
he was not a registered voter in Bossier Parish. He would not become one until
ten months into his tenure, but even
now some dispute remains over whether that residence qualifies for that purpose.
They also filled completely the parish's Library
Board of Control with themselves, a move which
is of uncertain legal status and unprecedented across the state.

When at that latest meeting
a couple of citizens questioned the reappointment
of Republican Juror Doug
Rimmer to the Board, drawing upon attorney general documents that declared
sitting jurors on library boards was dual officeholding, as well as questioning
why all five board members had to be jurors when in a parish approaching
130,000 residents surely there were more than enough non-jurors willing to
serve, the likes of Rimmer and another juror on the Board, Republican Julianna
Parks, at jury meetings and other forums have asserted the necessity of
having jurors on the Board because of alleged and nebulously specified problems
with the Board. As well, at this meeting Rimmer stated, on the advice of Parish
Attorney Patrick Jackson, that the ability for jurors to serve on the Board was
unquestioned.

The problem is, in addition to the Attorney
General's office publicly taking the opposite position, case law not addressing
this exact situation – at the meeting Jackson erroneously implied that it had
and in favor of his interpretation – and conflicting statutes that seemingly give
a parish the ability to dodge dual officeholding restrictions in this instance,
Jackson himself doesn't have a good track record when it comes to understanding
what the law means concerning appointments in parish government. In the past, he
told jurors that, absent a court
ruling otherwise which eventually happened, that Jury appointee Robert Berry
to the Cypress Black Bayou Recreation
and Water Conservation District could serve in that capacity and as the agency's
executive director without violating dual officeholding law. And Rimmer stated at
a recent Republican Parish Executive Committee meeting that Jackson also advised
jurors they could appoint Ford as parish administrator despite his voter
registration not being in Bossier while he looked to rectify that, which appears
nowhere in the law and an action Ford showed no signs of pursuing until this
space publicized his continued registration in Caddo parish ten months after
his appointment.

Worst of all, Jackson either apparently was
unaware of, tacitly approved of, or actually counseled in favor of the fact
that the Board, then comprised of Rimmer, Republican Bob
Brotherton who won reelection, and Gray illegally had made Ford interim
library director in October, 2022, in contravention of R.S. 25:215 that states
any head of a library system must have qualifications under R.S. 25:222, or a certification
by the State Board of Library Examiners. Ford would serve six months in that
job.

This unequivocally illegal action by three jurors
(probably four, as minutes of that meeting never haven been made widely available,
if they exist; the next meeting's minutes imply at that previous meeting
Republican Juror Glenn
Benton had been appointed but it's unknown whether he participated in the
vote to appoint Ford) belies the argument that jurors were necessary to "clean
up" the Board. In fact, they disgraced it and themselves by behaving illegally.

And the whole argument of juror necessity to respond
to some problem is untenable, if not a mendacious excuse to justify the juror
takeover. In fact, jurors were serving on the Board as long ago as 2016,
when the Jury expanded the Board to include Rimmer and Brotherton with five
other citizens (boards can have five to seven members). If there were alleged
difficulties, not only have these been going on a long time, but also jurors by
definition contributed to these so how can adding more jurors – and retaining the
two already there – solve for problems jurors already are creating? So what's
so great about juror service on the Board if they act illegally and supposedly
badly enough to need outside intervention?

Of course, to clarify about whether jurors can
serve on the Board, a simple request to the Attorney General's office for an opinion could be pursued. That
would take a resolution passed by the Jury, but no juror has suggested this
happen – perhaps because they know their policy might be in trouble. And the
dismissive attitude that Rimmer and other jurors showed in the meeting towards
citizen concerns on this issue illustrates their haughtiness and a belief they
are above the citizenry, if not the law, emboldened now by recent electoral
success.

If it stays that way. And it may not, if the
latest Bossier City Council meeting indicates anything. Because three years ago,
the Council was much like the Jury today. Back then five members of almost two
decades or more service on the Council, actively supported by another more
junior member, ran the show with little transparency, using their voting power
and a compliant mayor to foist an avalanche of unneeded capital spending fueled
by debt onto the backs of the citizenry.

However, the stench of that awakened enough voters
so that two of the graybeards lost their jobs and eventually were replaced by
newcomers Republicans Chris Smith and
Brian
Hammons. Since then, the pair have become increasingly vocal about use of
tax dollars going to genuine needs rather than to monuments, figurative and literal,
to long-serving councilors' egos.

While Hammons missed the last meeting, Smith more
than made up for the both of them with a display of this critical attitude over
spending. On an item
for more capital expenditures for parks and recreation, Smith pointed out that
in recent years over $20 million in tax dollars had gone for capital expenditures
at the Tinsley Park complex, yet tax-paying citizens often couldn't use these
in being crowded out instead by out-of-towners paying fees to use these.

Sparring with head of the Bossier City Department
of Parks and Recreation Clay Bohanan, who with past mayoral and current Council
graybeard support has pursued a model
that puts revenue generation ahead of citizen ability to use certain facilities,
Smith not only fought back against Bohanan's arrogance, who was joined by graybeard
Democrat Councilor Bubba Williams
implying that their exclusionary pay-to-play model was unimpeachably correct,
but he also made the heretical suggestion that in following that model it would
make more sense just to sell off the facilities to private operators.

In the larger scheme of things, Smith's argument
was that instead of taxpayer dollars going to paying of the principal and
interest on debt on things of little value to the citizenry, it could be
reserved to fund employee raises, particularly for public safety personnel.
When Williams subsequently challenged (actually calling untrue) a Smith
statement that Bossier City's salaries ranked at the bottom of the region by
pointing to a study
done a couple of years back comparing Alexandria's public safety salaries to
others in the state that put Bossier City police in the middle of the pack,
Smith trumped him with his own very recent data looking at regional agencies,
almost all in Texas, which had Bossier City salaries at or near the bottom.

Such argumentation would have been unheard of
coming from the Council three years ago. But Smith and Hammons' elections in 2021 brought a breath of fresh air into Council debates that until then had been
almost always get-along-go-along with no dissension on big spending plans with
total disregard of airing out negative implications of that spending.

Hopefully, those kinds of debates will commence
and flourish now that at least one reform-minded outsider, Sutton, will join
the Jury. Glorioso was part of the cabal united with the Council graybeards
when she served as Bossier City chief administrative officer until her boss
lost reelection, so it seems unlikely that she would act differently in opening
up the Jury. Perhaps Darby's opponent Democrat Mary Giles would ally with
Sutton, while Julius Darby seems unlikely to.

But as the events surrounding Bossier City
government over the past couple of years have shown, you don't have to have a
majority to change the atmosphere. Perhaps a couple of years from now the
sunshine even one dissenter can bring will have started to show results in curbing
the Jury's penchant for lawless, sanctimonious behavior while deflating its members'
attitude of insufferably unaccountable behavior.

A surprising
and faulty U.S. Supreme Court decision may force Louisiana to redraw its
congressional map for 2024 – or might put the state in a position to act as a
springboard for an entirely new challenge to making race the predominant factor
in drawing electoral boundaries.

That predominance was strengthened by today's
decision in Allen v.
Milligan, which concerned Alabama's districts. Although six justices –
those nominated by a Republican president – agreed that Section 2 of the Voting
Rights Act did not compel states to give race a privileged place in drawing
lines, which Alabama argued in that the only real difference between its adopted
plan that created only one majority-minority district out of seven whereas the
population proportion would suggest two, Chief Justice John Roberts and Assoc.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh essentially said because
enough states had treated it as such over the years that it had earned that
privilege.

In other words, apply a bad interpretation of the
law long enough and it becomes sanitized. Specifically in this case, as long as
district drawing doesn't devolve into ridiculous shapes and running riot over
other generally-accepted principles of reapportionment, race can have a privileged
status over all others. Dissenting justices noted the perversity of an
interpretation that grants precedent such power over intent and logic.

Louisiana has a pair of joined cases on hold to
which this decision will apply, but perhaps not change the its current
arrangement of districts where in a state with nearly a third of the population
having significant black ancestry has only one M/M districts of six. That's
because in the Alabama
case an alternative two M/M plan didn't have its results running race that
roughshod over other metrics such as separating communities of interest. By
contrast, in the two Louisiana cases the alternative maps do more violation
particularly to communities of interest and Louisiana itself doesn't have the
same history in trying to impose race as a dominant criterion after failing to
do so in the 1990s – even among minority elected officials – weakening the value
of precedent.

In other words, given the strengthened position of
race-conscious apportionment, Louisiana will have to show any such solution still
does enough violence to other criteria to reject that approach. But the
challenges to its plan also could be defended in another way.

The Alabama case looked only at statute. In
particular, Assoc. Justice Clarence Thomas has argued that the insertion of
primarily race-conscious solutions to reapportionment violate the Constitution,
specifically the 14th and 15th Amendments. Kavanaugh in
his opinion noted the case didn't address that argument, which he intimated he
would be open to considering. If Louisiana has a lower court rule with the
plaintiffs, it could appeal on this basis.

There's also the matter of using the larger
affirmative action lens in interpreting VRA Section 2, which later this month
should receive greater clarity rulings about its use in college admissions.
That is, the Court, having recognized using race as redress for past discrimination
is a temporary thing, may conclude the clock has run out on affirmative action
use with the change of objective conditions. Louisiana or others could argue
that giving race primacy in reapportionment has run its course in its necessity
in ensuring intentional discrimination against minorities in setting parameters
for elections.

Still, the Court's apparent endorsement, for now,
of using race paradoxically to combat alleged racism should disturb Americans
who believe their representation shouldn't hinge on the immutable
characteristic of their race.

David Boaz


Here we go again. Another "obituary" for libertarianism. While Salon Magazine declares that we all live in a "libertarian dystopia," and a new brand of big‐​government conservatives promise to free the Republican party and American government from their libertarian captivity, Barton Swaim declares in the Wall Street Journal that a new book "works as an obituary" for libertarianism. That's not a characterization that I think the authors—Matt Zwolinski and John Tomasi—would accept of their book, The Individualists: Radicals, Reactionaries, and the Struggle for the Soul of Libertarianism.
Swaim notes that the book surveys many different kinds of self‐​styled libertarians over the past two centuries, and that the authors lay out six "markers" that libertarians share: property rights, individualism, free markets, skepticism of authority, negative liberties, and a belief that people are best left to order themselves spontaneously. Not a bad list, significantly overlapping with the list of seven key libertarian ideas that I laid out in the first chapter of my own book, The Libertarian Mind.
He goes on to argue, following the authors, "In the 21st century, the movement in the U.S. has consisted in an assortment of competing, often disputatious intellectual cadres: anarchists, anarcho‐​capitalists, paleo‐​libertarians (right‐​wing), 'liberaltarians' (left‐​wing) and many others." Somehow he leaves out actual libertarians, such as those who populate the Cato Institute, Reason magazine, the Objectivist world, and much of the Libertarian Party. Indeed, a few lines later he cites the "diversity" of "the priestess of capitalism Ayn Rand, the politician Rand Paul and the billionaire philanthropist Charles Koch"—none of whom would fall into any of the esoteric categories that he suggests make up modern libertarianism and in fact belong to actual libertarianism or its penumbras.
The whole review is ahistorical. Swaim never mentions classical liberalism, the revolutionary movement that challenged monarchs, autocrats, mercantilism, caste society, and established churches beginning in the 18th century. Liberalism soon swept the United States and Western Europe and ushered in what economic historian Deirdre McCloskey calls the "Great Enrichment," the unprecedented rise in living standards that has made us moderns some 3,000 percent richer than our ancestors of 1800. The ideas of the classical liberals, including John Locke, Adam Smith, and the American Founders, are those that animate modern libertarianism: equal rights, constitutional government, free markets, tolerance, the rule of law. Zwolinski and Tomasi say that "what sets libertarians apart is the absolutism and systematicity" with which we advocate those ideas. Well, yes, after 200 years of historical observation and philosophical and economic debate, many of us do believe that a firmer adherence to liberal/​libertarian ideas would serve society well. We observe that the closer a society comes to consistent tolerance, free markets, and the rule of law, the more it will achieve widespread peace, prosperity, and freedom.
Swaim insists that libertarians do not engage "with ultimate questions—questions about the good life, morality, religious meaning, human purpose and so on." He's wrong about that. Adam Smith wrote The Theory of Moral Sentiments. F. A. Hayek stressed the importance of morals and tradition. Ayn Rand set out a fairly strict code of personal ethics. Thomas Szasz's work challenged the reductionists and behaviorists with a commitment to the old ideas of good and bad, right and wrong, and responsibility for one's choices. Charles Murray emphasizes the value and indeed the necessity of community and responsibility. Libertarian philosophers of virtue ethics find the case for limited government to be based on the search for the good life. Swaim would be on more solid ground to say that libertarianism does not presume to tell individuals what to believe and how to live. Separation of church and state and all that. As I wrote in a letter to the Journal (not yet published), Swaim refers to the "studiously amoral philosophy of libertarianism." A popular summary of libertarianism, "don't hit other people, don't take their stuff, and keep your promises," is just the basic morality that allows human beings to live together in peace.
As for his claim that libertarianism is dead, that this book is an obituary, I refer Swaim again to all the people who complain that we're living in some sort of libertarian world. Libertarians often feel depressed; they believe the world is on "the road to serfdom." But in fact the world is far freer in this century than ever before in history. Free markets and free trade, an end to slavery and caste societies, representative government, and the rule of law now govern the Western world and much of the rest. Most of the Cato Institute's website comprises complaints about the malfeasance of the U.S. government. But in the bigger picture, libertarians have had much success. In the roughly 50 years since I started thinking about politics, one could point to such successes as:
the end of conscription in the United States
social, economic, and political equality for women
dramatically lower marginal tax rates
freer trade
deregulation of major industries such as airlines, trucking, communication, and finance
the almost total demise of communism
and the consequent discrediting of socialism and central planning
the reorientation of antitrust policy to a consumer welfare standard
expanded First Amendment protections
expanded Second Amendment protections
the progress of gay rights and gay marriage
growing opportunities for school choice
a slow erosion of the war on drugs
I could go on. None of these are total victories. No ideology achieves all of its sweeping vision, at least not without a military conquest of the government and the ability to rule by decree—and those experiments are nothing to emulate. In various parts of the world bad ideas are back—socialism, protectionism, ethnic nationalism, anti‐​Semitism, even industrial policy. The libertarian challenge is to join with other liberals—Reaganite conservatives, free‐​speech liberals, people who are "fiscally conservative and socially liberal"—to push back against these bad resurgent ideas. But this record of accomplishment is no obituary.

Republican Gov. Jeff Landry is finding
tricky navigating as he attempts to revolutionize Louisiana government.

Landry came into office on the back of a big
election win and with a healthy supermajority of GOP legislators joining him.
The playbook for chief executives under these conditions calls for striking
while the iron is hot, especially at the start of a term in office.

His ambitious agenda reflected this. A special legislative
session of his calling definitively put his imprint of increased
accountability and responsibility onto criminal justice policy. Now a month
from adjourning, the regular session already has sent to his desk some regulatory
reforms for property insurance, with the issues of high premiums and reduced
availability nagging ratepayers for years, with more on the way.

But that's not all, and here he's beginning to
bump up against the limits of power shaped by the realities of the political
environment. Landry had stumped for a huge injection of choice into education
by proposing, over a few years starting next academic year, that the state subsidize
children's education options, except for home schooling, through education
savings accounts. That makes sense since a significant portion of
households with children in school pay into public education, yet because of its
relatively low quality they end up paying again to have their children educated
in nonpublic schools. Pursuing this over the long haul will improve public
education through introducing competition as well as reduce public dollars
going to nonpublic schools eventually as the proportion of children in public
schools increases as a result.

The problem is the costs after phasing in for a
few years would be substantial. While some alarmist numbers nearly twice the anticipated
amount are overblown, it's likely these early costs would be in the $300
million annual range. These would commence not long after a temporary sales tax
increase of 0.45 percent rolls off the books. While both axing the tax increase
and establishing ESAs are necessary to improve the state's fiscal health – both
lower taxes and a better-educated citizenry lead to increased economic
development – in the long term, this makes for a tighter budget in the short
term.

Thus, a state Senate panel has endorsed
an alternative
to a House bill
encapsulating Landry's approach that at present senators sit on. It basically would
punt the matter of designing ESAs to the Board of Elementary and Secondary
Education after a study, but give the Legislature ultimate control over any
rules that BESE could promulgate to establish ESAs by making funding contingent
on an annual appropriation.

A solid BESE majority supports ESAs so whatever
comes from that probably wouldn't look much different than Landry's plan, and
this approach more flexibly can respond to the sales tax hike expiration the
year after next. Still, it risks momentum loss as district school boards and
educrats fear losing power along with special interests wanting to keep things,
so they already are fighting tooth-and-nail to derail the reform.

Fiscal matters also are driving, and threatening,
another huge Landry initiative: putting
the Louisiana Constitution on a diet. He wants in principle to transfer out
from it into law a number of provisions dealing with taxes and spending, making
these easier for legislators to adjust on the fly to respond to the varying
fiscal environment, rather than face constraints and the necessity of a lengthy
process to make changes. The state's basic law locks in certain items most states
have in statute.

Landry hopes to have this shedding done in time
for fall elections as voters would have to approve of this. Approval by then
would be needed in order have more options to tackle the sales tax hike
expiration next year, in addition to creating more efficient government sooner.

However, he has run into skepticism from the
Senate that this can be done on his preferred timeline of the last two weeks of
the regular session, with as much as a month added on, as legislators mainly
would comprise the convention delegates. A better option may be an August
convention, up until the deadline for submitting ballot items for the Nov. 5
election.

Representatives
also have removed some flexibility by proposing to keep from consideration of
removal the state's excessive homestead exemption or siloed Minimum Foundation
Program, out of political pressure. That's not necessary – delegates would
divine that taking these out of the Constitution might cause voter rejection
and so not do that in the first place – and emboldens opposition big government
advocates who understand that the constitutional straitjacket in place
artificially inflates the size of government.

Hopefully, Landry can keep as much on the table as
possible for delegate discussion, and may have to accept a later date for
review – perhaps a relief to legislators who have been in session most of the
time since the first couple of weeks of the year, but which also gives special
interests wishing to retain bloated government more time to rally opposition.
Steering this into fruition from convention to ballot box success would score
him a big policy win and provide better government for the citizenry.

Jennifer Huddleston and Gent Salihu


Prior to the 2022-2023 legislative session, five states (California, Virginia, Utah, Colorado, and Connecticut) had passed consumer data privacy laws, but now the patchwork of state laws has more than doubled. Congress has continued to debate a potential federal standard with the American Data Privacy Protection Act in the 117th Congress being the first such proposal to be voted out of a committee; however, without momentum around a federal standard and with continuing and new concerns about data privacy from consumers, many states are undertaking their own policy actions around data privacy.
The patchwork nature of these individual state laws can potentially amplify compliance costs for businesses operating across different states and create confusion among American consumers whose digital footprint often crosses state borders. The potential financial impact of complying with 50 distinct state laws could surpass $1 trillion over a decade, with a minimum of $200 billion being borne by small businesses. As this patchwork grows, what does data privacy look like as the 2022-2023 legislative session comes to a close?
What happened with data privacy in 2022-2023?
As of 2023, the majority of states have considered data privacy legislation, likely in response to consumer concerns on this issue — 32 state legislatures have kicked off the debate and presented bills. Ten states have already signed comprehensive privacy bills into law. Six states—Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Montana, Tennessee, and Texas—enacted data privacy legislation this year. Oregon is the latest state to pass a comprehensive law, which is now awaiting the governor's signature. Additionally, there are five more bills under consideration as of July 2023. Most of these bills share similarities with the existing data privacy laws in California, Virginia, and Utah.











States with data privacy acts enacted in 2023 that have followed the California model
Of the five additional states that enacted data privacy laws this year, Indiana and Montana appear to most closely resemble California's model, which relies heavily on administrative rules. Montana, for example, even goes beyond California by creating a right for consumers to revoke their consent to data processing. None of the states that have enacted laws this year have created a private right of action as seen in a limited capacity in the current California law.
States that have followed the Virginia or Utah model
Notably, a growing number of states have passed or considered a data privacy framework that more closely resembles the laws initially passed in Utah and Virginia. This includes Iowa, Tennessee, and Texas as well as a bill still under consideration in North Carolina. Such models provide baseline protections but typically have fewer obligations or areas of covered data, limit enforcement to the attorney general, and are more likely to provide safe harbors.
Still, each proposal remains unique. For example, Tennessee became the first state to create a compliance safe harbor for companies complying with National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) standards. Other states have considered similar carve-outs for existing standards. Such an approach may lessen some problems with the patchwork by providing a way for a single set of best practices that could be compliant from state to state.
Notable privacy bill trends to watch
In addition to the growing patchwork of state privacy laws, this latest legislative term has also provided additional information about the debates around data privacy legislation. Notably, private rights of action continue to raise concerns and may make proposals less likely to succeed. Additionally, a new trend of health privacy-focused bills is emerging at the state level.
Currently, four states that still have active bills—Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Rhode Island—contemplate creating a private right of action. However, to date, all bills from Hawaii to Mississippi to New York that included provisions on the private right of action have failed. New York's failed "It's Your Data Act" had foreseen that consumers "need not suffer monetary or property loss as a result of such violation in order to bring an action for a violation." The Washington Privacy Act was passed only after eliminating the private right of action, which was later reinstated in a very limited form by allowing a private right of action only for injunctive relief without monetary damages.
The inclusion of a private right of action for statutory violations so that individuals can sue companies without the need to prove that actual harm inflicted upon them has grave consequences. Such private right of action for statutory damages raises significant concerns about how litigation could be used to prevent innovation. While a private right of action wouldn't pose any significant issues if the burden of proof was solely tied to demonstrating the harm, the problem arises when there's no requirement to prove harm. Such a provision could prompt a surge in class action lawsuits, thereby impeding innovation, especially among small companies that may become more risk-averse for fear of being sued.
The United States, with its distinct litigation system, and features such as the absence of a "loser pays" rule, is more susceptible to the abuse of the private right of action for statutory violations. Illinois's Biometric Information Privacy Act provides such a right in the context of certain collection of data and has seen everything from photo tagging to trucking companies be sued. Most of the resulting funds have gone to attorneys, with limited amounts to the class members alleged to be "violated" by the action. In the photo tagging case, Facebook was directed to pay $650 million without the necessity of demonstrating any harm. In the trucking case, truck drivers secured a $228 million judgment because, as employees, they were required to scan fingerprints to confirm their identity, again without the need to show actual harm.
A new emerging trend to watch is the ongoing debate surrounding the sponsorship of bills aimed at regulating consumer health data, primarily focusing on reproductive health data. Washington is the first state to pass such a law, which is set to take effect in 2024. In a post-Roe context, it is likely that similar legislation — particularly in blue states — will emerge, regulating actors that are not governed by HIPAA. Given the broad scope of what is classified as health data, debates on its definition, collection, and usage are likely to be heated. Such laws also raise unique compliance questions for a variety of popular apps that are not regulated as medical devices but provide consumers with empowering ways to track information from blood sugar to mental health.
What do state data privacy laws mean for consumers, innovators, and the federal privacy policy debate?
States are acting on data privacy in part because of the continued interest in the issue from constituents. In 2022, more than 80% of voters polled supported the idea of a federal data privacy law. Given that data privacy remains a concern and due to the lack of progress on a federal bill, it is unsurprising that much of the debate over data privacy has shifted to a local or state level where legislatures are able to move more quickly. But is this good for consumers and innovators?
Is there a case for data privacy legislation anyway?
While many polled consumers are in favor of data privacy legislation, there remains a great amount of difference in the actual privacy preferences they have. In fact, the overwhelming support for data privacy becomes far more complicated when you consider questions like how much an individual would be willing to pay for social media or other products as opposed to an ad-supported version. Similarly, research has shown a "privacy paradox" where revealed preferences for privacy tend to be weaker than stated preferences.
If policymakers are to consider legislation around data privacy, they should focus on real and widely agreed-upon harms, not merely expressed preferences. This approach prevents a shift toward a more European "privacy fundamentalism" that is more likely to result in conflicts both with other rights, like speech, as well as create a static approach that could deter innovation including those that may improve privacy.
Understanding the problems of a patchwork approach
The continuing, emerging patchwork of data privacy laws at a state level is likely to lead to both increased costs and confusion. This is true not only for the businesses that handle data but also for consumers.
A state-by-state approach makes it uncertain for both innovators and consumers what may or may not be done with their data. For consumers, this can create confusion about why certain products or features may not be available in their state or what rights they have when it comes to obtaining or correcting their data online. Particularly for small businesses, a state-by-state approach is likely to significantly raise costs as new compliance concerns arise in each state. In some cases, this may result in applying the most restrictive standard necessary, but in other cases, it may require development of specific features to comply. In either case, again both consumers and innovators lose out. Consumers may find themselves losing features because of standards imposed by legislatures in other states and innovators may find themselves focusing on compliance rather than the improvements that best serve their customers.
Far from being the second-best solution, it is almost inevitable that proposals will eventually conflict with one another which makes it impossible to comply with all such state laws. The most obvious example of this would be if one state chooses an opt-out model while another chooses an opt-in model, but many other conflicts could arise around issues such as data minimization or retention.
Given the potential and likelihood for conflicts and the burden on out-of-state businesses, a state-by-state approach also should give rise to dormant commerce clause concerns. The interstate (and international) nature of data means that a federal standard should be considered constitutionally necessary in this case.

Conclusion
The 2022-2023 session saw a doubling of the number of states with consumer data privacy laws. While policymakers may feel they are responding to constituent concerns, the patchwork approach remains problematic for both innovators and consumers.

As a parting gift to Louisianans, Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards
gave them the middle-fingered salute that forever cements his reputation as
Gov. Nyet.

It's not so much the volume of vetoes, contrasted
to his predecessor Republican Gov. Bobby
Jindal who in his first term vetoed 74 regular session non-appropriations
bills and 50 in his second term, while Edwards vetoed just 29 in his first term
and wrapped up with 78 in his second. In part, it's because Edwards cast nearly
half his vetoes in just the past two years while Jindal cast only a few in his
last quarter of service.

But mostly it's because Jindal's vetoes only
rarely struck anything but low-profile measures while Edwards' have gone
against some subjects of considerable popular and newsworthy concern. So much
so that Edwards looks to have triggered a third veto session in an annual row, where
these meetings to overturn vetoes had been unprecedented prior to his time in
office, and where one override became the first to succeed.

Expect more. Prior to Edwards, past governors shied
away from vetoing big items, in part because they didn't have to face them. High-profile
measures usually carried popular support and legislative supermajorities, so if
a governor couldn't cut these off at the pass, he would have to let them go.

But Edwards, if not the most liberal governor in
the state's history in the aggregate certainly the most committed leftist on
social issues, just won't lay down on some of these. And he does so for the
most relentless partisan and ideological reasons, even as he invokes tiresome
preachiness about how anybody disagreeing with him is sowing division when, in
reality, he disingenuously goes out of his way to provoke conflict as a necessity
of ideological fealty and to pay off allies.

Some of his veto messages provide prime examples
of this sanctimony. HB 399 would
have had schools when communicating information about the state schedule of
vaccinations also reminding parents and students that under statute they can
opt out themselves or their children from this. He vetoed this,
calling it "a covert attempt to undermine the faith of the public in vaccines"
as his way of covertly attacking state law he dislikes because it disempowers
government – even as the evidence
continues to grow about intentional media and government downplaying of the
volume and magnitude of adverse impacts of Wuhan coronavirus vaccination.

Or with SB 1 that over
the next few years would have reduced substantially, perhaps even entirely, the
corporate franchise tax considered economically injurious. Edwards admits this
but says he vetoed
it because it might cut government revenues too much in light of previous
reformation efforts and the coming expiration of the 0.45 percent sales tax
hike he had backed to the hilt. Of course, in his zeal to overinflate
government to this year's budget Edwards led the charge to add hundreds of
millions of dollars in unneeded new commitments, which without that happening would
have mooted any future concerns about tax cuts that would have reached consumers.

And there's SB 196, which attempted to bring
transparency to the Wild West of third
party litigation funding – critically appraised by the television news
program 60
Minutes, many state attorneys general, and GOP Sen. John Kennedy for resulting
in an unnecessary amount of litigation and potential noncitizen interference in
legal processes – not by prohibiting this but merely asking for revelation of
lawsuit funders. But as this could have the slightest possibility of reducing
trial lawyer business – the single largest group of funders of Edwards'
political career – he vetoed it,
ignoring consequences from the zero oversight and rules about it and instead calling
it "a pretense designed to gain a litigation advantage" for trial lawyer opponents.

His pièce de résistance was the last-minute
vetoes of HB 81,
HB 466,
and HB 648.
HB 466 would prevent school employees from psychological coaching of students
about their gender identity inconsistent with state instructional standards and
protect school employees and students from confusion over pronoun use of
students. HB 81 would cover pronoun usage like HB 466. HB 648 would prohibit
medical interventions to alter the sex of children, where research
shows such interventions regretted by almost a third of all children guided into
these and a significant portion of others years later feeling no more
positively about themselves.

These disapprovals guaranteed another veto
session, with each having passed by healthy supermajorities. Not only will all
but a couple of Republicans vote for overrides but also several Democrats threatened
to lose reelection this fall will jump at the chance to override as nationally
opinion polls show the sentiments behind the bills favored by the public.

Edwards' actions are so predictable. This pathetic
political hack never has had the best interests of Louisianans in mind other
than as an appendage to ruthless promotion of an ideological template alien to
the state and/or empowering special interest political allies. But he'll go
down swinging, railing against whatever contravenes his warped agenda for the
polity. 

A whole generation goes by, and nothing changes for
Bossier Parish apparently playing fast and loose with the law when it comes to
squeezing money from the citizenry.

The Bossier
Watch transmission of Apr. 16 contained a couple of minutes of commentary
and video of a sign reading "VOTE SATURDAY, APRIL 27, 2024 BOSSIER PARISH
LIBRARIES" planted near a roadway. The hosts recounted they had seen some
around, although the exact location of this one was unknown. On that date is
the spring municipal runoff elections in Louisiana, where a 7.43 mils property
tax renewal to fund Bossier Parish libraries reengaging in 2026 for 10 years is
the one item that will appear on ballots parish-wide.

What follows is a reprint of a post
I made at my Louisiana-centric blog site, Between the Lines, on Dec. 30, 2010
that reviewed events of four years previous. (Keep in mind nearly 18 years ago
that the Arthur Ray Teague Parkway stopped at the southern end of the
now-Brookshire Grocery Arena). It's amazing how little things (and people
involved) change:

As 2011 approaches and observing that Bossier
Parish seems to have no difficulty, even in trying economic times, in finding
money to service road construction, as well as reviewing the past year and
digesting the renewed enthusiasm that the people have acquired courtesy of
over-reaching national government to monitor the activities of government, it
makes me think back some years ago about an object lesson concerning how
government operates. The specific example is Bossier Parish's, and the apparent
whimsy of situation might amuse save for the unsettling consequences implied
had things turned out differently.

Perhaps somebody remembers in the days leading up
to the 2006 fall elections that a sign touting an affirmative vote for Bossier
Parish raising property taxes essentially threefold, at what was then the
southern end of the Arthur Ray Teague Parkway, was moved a short distance away
only a few days before that election. Blame me for the consternation.

I first noticed the sign on Sep. 21 and became
simultaneously curious and concerned. It didn't state who sponsored it, and it
was in a spot I thought might be part of the public right-of-way, and certainly
was on public property (Bossier City's). Obviously, it was an attempt to
encourage passage of the measure which should bring pause to anyone who
believes in fairness by government: Bossier City was permitting a pro-vote
sign, supporting a Bossier Parish measure which would enrich the parish coffers
by $2 million a year, to be placed on its property, regardless of whether its
citizens supported such a measure.

According to the Unified Development Code for both
the city and parish, this is permissible under certain circumstances. Article
9 Section 10 states: "Temporary signs containing no commercial message and
related to an election or other event or matter of public interest may be
erected in any zoning district of the city or parish but not within the public
right-of-way." Note, however, that the Code does not mention placement on
government property.

After a couple of phone calls I got hold of Parish
Engineer Joe "Butch" Ford, who said a private entity had put up the
sign (and a similar one elsewhere). At least no government was using taxpayer
dollars to try to influence its citizens voting behavior. Still, apparently it
was on city property and the right-of-way question he couldn't answer, so on I
called the Bossier City engineer to find out the answer to the latter.

He took time out of his busy day to relay to me
that the public right-of-way extended to the back side of the barricade
blocking the end of the pavement (about 25 feet from the roadway). However, the
sign was located on the front side of the barricade, meaning it was in the
public right-of-way and therefore illegally placed.

I then placed another call to the Metropolitan
Planning Commission (I had placed one the day before but, like the call to
Ford, had been close to the end of the workday and, unlike the one to him, was
not answered). The employee there said they would deal with the situation, once
I informed him of it. Since this was early Friday afternoon, I didn't know
whether anything would happen before the weekend.

Early the next Monday, now five days prior to the
election, I got a call from the Bossier MPC director Sam Marsiglia, who said it
was legal to have the sign there because "it's a public sign." He alleged that
a government had put it there, and that was legal. I informed him that the
parish engineer had said otherwise and tried to explain that wouldn't look very
good if a government was using taxpayer dollars to sway their votes so a
government wouldn't do that, but he was insistent and said I should call Parish
Administrator Bill Altimus about the matter.

I had duties to attend to so it was about 20
minutes later that I dialed Altimus. He cheerfully informed me the sign would
be moved. As soon as I hung up, Marsiglia called, saying it would be moved to
the Reeves Marine property (adjacent east of the barricades) and to check back
with him if it wasn't done. (It would have been out of the right-of-way simply
by moving it behind the barricades but would have remained on city property.)

This, I might add, is simply wonderfully
neighborly behavior by the city and parish and Reeves Marine. Silly me, I
thought whenever illegal campaign signs were discovered they either were
destroyed or confiscated to a location where their owners could liberate them.
Instead, not only were the interests behind the sign being allowed to move it,
within only minutes of being informed of that necessity Reeves Marine
graciously volunteered to host the sign. What a friendly place! Future
candidates for office, now you know, if you place a sign on Bossier City
property and/or illegally, it won't be destroyed or removed, they'll let you
move it, maybe even to Reeves Marine. (If you ask nicely, maybe they'll even
move it for you!)

(Note: in a subsequent communication, even Bossier
City elected officials seemed confused over the incident. At my request, city
councilman Scott Irwin wrote to Mayor Lo Walker, whose office's reply did not
even discuss the legal issue and did not address the propriety of an
electioneering sign on city property, adding "With your concurrence I will
consider this ITEM CLOSED." Maybe not; maybe this issue of propriety is
something that ought to be addressed by the city.)

Regardless of the sign's position (or of any
others; there were several other similar ones touting the bond issue around the
parish), the proposition narrowly failed. It took one concerned citizen to make
the system work properly regarding the sign. Sep. 30, 2006, it took a majority
of concerned citizens voting to make the Bossier Parish Police Jury see the
truth that it didn't need to raise taxes to make sure the parkway was extended
expeditiously and, even with deteriorated economic conditions, then to proceed
to fulfill the other projects that had argued could be completed only with the
increased taxation.

And confirmation of this came earlier this month,
when the extension to the Parkway opened (through where the sign originally had
been) without the extra tax dollars having gone into its construction. Lesson:
watch government very closely lest it take what it does not need nor deserve
from the people.

And now to 2024 … the sign displayed on Bossier
Watch seemed awfully close to the road, meaning it's in the right-of-way, and
the Bossier UDC hasn't changed since making that placement illegal. Thus, it would
be incumbent on either the parish or whatever municipality may have such signs to
remove these.

And where are they coming from? Campaign
finance disclosure law would mandate that any political committee spending
money on electioneering at this date close to the election would had to have
filed a report about the expenditure for signs. None has, meaning either some
PAC somewhere illegally hasn't reported this or no registered PAC has done it.
That leads to a loophole in the law (R.S. 18:1501.1): any person who spends in
opposition or support of a candidate or ballot item must report that – unless
the aggregate contributions and expenses involved don't exceed $500. It is possible
that, if there are few enough of these signs, that their cost didn't exceed
that figure, and that someone or a few people got together and did that.

So, the public never may know who is doing this, and
what their potential relationship is to Bossier Parish's government and libraries.
In fact, it may be quite close, given the wording of the sign which ambiguously
doesn't advocate for or against the ballot item. It merely exhorts the viewer
to vote on that day and slips in "BOSSIER PARISH LIBRARIES." By doing this, if
discovered government employees actually were involved, the parish could claim
it wasn't electioneering but merely informing the public there was an election
on Saturday, Apr. 27.

Of course, the signs' presentation implies something
critical about libraries will appear on the ballot and, further, people should vote
in whatever manner available to support libraries. After all, who is against libraries?

If anybody in Bossier Parish government knows
about this, they need to go public. At the very least, parish government must remove
any such signs on public rights-of-way; tolerance of this denotes acceptance
not only of illegal behavior but also endorsement of a political preference.
And state lawmakers would do well to clarify statute to make it expressly
illegal for any government to spend any dollars to electioneer, even if in a
manner that doesn't explicitly advocate for or against something on the ballot.
Because when it comes to gorging themselves on taxpayer dollars, government
will try any dodge available to keep other peoples' money rolling in.

Vladimir Putin extended his rule over Russia after claiming a fifth term as president over the weekend in a predetermined election in which he faced little opposition. Leaders of middle powers who have maintained neutral stances during the war in Ukraine used congratulatory phone calls with Putin to stress the importance of bringing the conflict to an end and signal their willingness to help play a constructive role in future negotiations.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan "expressed Turkey's readiness to play any facilitating role in returning to the negotiation table for Ukraine," according to a statement released by his office. Ankara has pursued a balancing act throughout the war, providing military support to Ukraine but refusing to join the Western sanctions effort targeting Moscow. Turkey also played a key role in the now-defunct Black Sea grain deal, one of the few diplomatic breakthroughs through the first two years of conflict, and earlier this month offered to host a summit between Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky.
Indian President Narendra Modi made a similar push in the aftermath of Russia's elections, as he spoke to both Putin and Zelensky, emphasizing the necessity of "dialogue and diplomacy," between the two nations, reported the Times of India.
"Unlike China, India has not drawn up any peace plan, or made any specific offer to mediate, but has long maintained it will be happy to facilitate any international peace effort," according to the report. "Zelenskyy expressed gratitude for India's support for Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity, humanitarian aid and 'active' participation in Peace Formula meetings, as he invited Modi to Ukraine and hoped India will attend the inaugural Global Peace Summit in Switzerland."
Following its role as G20 host in 2023, world leaders and analysts expressed optimism that New Delhi could emerge as a peacemaker in the war.
Zelensky has been working to win over these middle powers and the rest of the Global South to sign on to his vision of a peace formula and participate in the planned summit in Switzerland that Russia has not been invited to. As outlined in Diplomacy Watch earlier this month, Kyiv has offered tepidly to welcome China's role in this effort, seeing Beijing as having leverage over parts of the rest of the world.
But Politico reported on Monday that Chinese President Xi Jinping will travel to France in May, looking to convince European leaders to invite Putin to future peace talks. If Moscow is not included, Beijing may boycott any upcoming summits.
"That message was amplified, [officials] say, during Chinese special envoy Li Hui's European tour earlier this month to discuss the future of Ukraine," according to Politico.
Kyiv has signaled some openness to having Russia at later talks, after the summit in Switzerland that it hopes will take place this summer.
"There can be a situation in which we together invite representatives of the Russian Federation, where they will be presented with the plan in case whoever is representing the aggressor country at that time will want to genuinely end this war and return to a just peace," Andriy Yermak, the Ukrainian president's chief of staff, said in late February.
In other diplomatic news related to the war in Ukraine:
— While the next tranche of Ukraine aid continues to get held up in the U.S. House of Representatives, two Biden administration officials traveled to Europe this week to express their optimism that Washington will eventually provide Kyiv with more funding. Speaking ahead of a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said "The message today is clear: The U.S. won't let Ukraine fail. This coalition will not let Ukraine fail and the free world won't let Ukraine fail."
Meanwhile, national security adviser Jake Sullivan made a secret visit to Kyiv, "in a trip aimed at reaffirming U.S. support for the beleaguered ally," according to The Washington Post. "You should believe in the United States," Sullivan told reporters during this trip. "We are confident we will get this done. We will get this aid to Ukraine."
— Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) was also in Kyiv on Monday, and he urged Ukrainian lawmakers to pass a mobilization law that would lower the age of eligibility to the draft from 27 to 25. "I would hope that those eligible to serve in the Ukrainian military would join. I can't believe it's at 27," Graham said. "You're in a fight for your life, so you should be serving — not at 25 or 27."
As Jack Hunter noted in Responsible Statecraft this week, Graham notably voted against the aid package that passed the Senate last month. "So it shouldn't be surprising that despite encouraging Ukraine's young men to fight in a war many of them don't believe in and don't want to die in, Graham actually voted against the last Ukraine aid package because it did not include funding U.S. border security," writes Hunter. "So he was comfortable withholding money for a war over politics — a war he proclaims to believe in deeply — while urging citizens of a foreign country to march into oblivion."
— Russia fired more than 30 missiles into Kyiv on Thursday, the first such attack against the Ukrainian capital in six weeks, according to AP. "Air defenses shot down all 31 of the missiles, though the falling wreckage still damaged apartment buildings and injured 13 people, including a child, officials said," reported Reuters. "The heavy attack on Kyiv came a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened to 'respond in kind' to recent Ukrainian aerial attacks on the Russian border region of Belgorod, which have embarrassed the Kremlin and which Russian officials say have killed civilians."
U.S. State Department news:
In response to a question about the Polish foreign minister's claim that whether or not Ukraine succeeds in its defense against Russia is a question of U.S. credibility, State Department spokesman Vedant Patel defended Washington's response to the war."I think that when it comes to our credibility, you needn't look any further than the immense support that the United States and its allies and partners have provided to our Ukrainian partners since February of 2022, and that work is going to continue and we're going to continue to do so in close coordination with our allies and partners," Patel said. " It is because, of course, the courageousness and the heroism of the Ukrainian people, but also the convergence with our partners in Europe and others around the country that we have been able to continue to support Ukraine in the way that we have and it has been able to defend itself so fiercely."