The View from Right Field

Biden Is Forgiving Debt for Former Students. He Should Tell Colleges to Cut Tuition for Current Students.

President Biden gave former college students a $10,000 gift ($20,000 in certain cases) if they borrowed money for college and haven’t paid it back.  But he didn’t give anything to current college students, which doesn’t seem fair.  So here’s my idea: For current students, he should force colleges to cut their tuition by $2500/$5000 a year (which is $10,000/$20,000 over four years).  It wouldn’t be that hard for the colleges.  Purdue has kept its in-state tuition at $9,992 for ten years.¹  Colleges can cut their costs – if they want to.  They could reduce the number of administrators; they could get a few teachers to teach an extra class; they could figure out ways to reduce fees.  There’s lots of things they could do.

And if President Biden’s lawyers can come up with a way to claim he has the legal authority to forgive all that student debt, I am sure they can come up with a way he can force colleges, at least any college that gets money from the federal government, which is just about all of them (except, maybe Hillsdale College), to cut their tuition.  And that wouldn’t even cost the federal government $300 billion.
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Note: I hope readers understand this post is a bit of a joke – except for the idea that colleges could cut their tuition.  They could - if they wanted to.  That's not a joke
¹ See here and here.

Solving Gun Violence – Without a Time Machine

I totally understand the calls for new gun control legislation.  What is happening is horrific.  The problem is that most of the proposals involve a time machine.  Let me explain.  Too many of the calls for gun control assume we can go back in time and get rid of the Second Amendment (which would involve going back to the early 1790s).  Or that we can, at least, go back to before the Heller decision in 2008, and get the Supreme Court to issue a different decision in that case (which might require going back before 2008 and getting at least a couple different justices on the Supreme Court). 

Many of them also assume we can go back to a time when we did not have upwards of 400 million guns in the United States. 

Overturning Roe v. Wade – And a Call for the Great Middle of America to Take the Issue Back

In September of 2018, I wrote a post about Roe v. Wade and the possibility that it might be overturned.  (It was the time of the confirmation hearings for Brett Kavanaugh.)  At that time, I said this:

“What people don’t understand in the debate over a woman’s right to choose is that we are not evenly divided between those who support a woman’s right to choose and those who oppose abortion.  Actually, views on abortion are divided among four groups: (i) those who oppose a woman’s right to choose under virtually any circumstances; (ii) those who want abortion available virtually without restriction; (iii) those who would allow it in some situations; and (iv) those who allow it in many circumstances. 

Do Kirkland & Ellis and the Biden Administration Have the Solution to Crime?

With Roe v. Wade getting overturned today, this post is probably a day late and a dollar short.  But here it is anyway:

Paul Clement and Erin Murphy, who won the case in the Supreme Court against New York state’s relatively strict handgun law,  New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen, have announced that they are leaving the law firm they were at, Kirkland & Ellis.  According to them, Kirkland & Ellis told them that the firm would no longer take firearms cases and that they needed to stop representing clients such as the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association or leave the firm.  Not surprisingly, Clement and Murphy are leaving K&E.¹  In any case, the lesson is clear: K&E doesn’t want to provide legal representation to unpopular clients – or at least certain unpopular clients.

Two Nations, One Country, Talking Past Each Other

I watched parts of a couple of Sunday morning news shows this morning (for the first time in I don’t know how long).  Among the stories were (i) the January 6 committee hearing last week in prime time and (ii) the protests outside Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s house and the guy arrested and charged with his attempted murder.

With respect to the January 6 committee, I don’t know if I learned much new.  For me, January 6, and the events leading up to it, told me all I needed to know about Donald Trump.  He lost the election, he tried to overturn the results on specious grounds, and he should not be considered any kind of candidate for any kind of office ever again.  The committee hearings may tell me a little more about January 6, but it will only make him look worse, and the prior sentence is still true. 

Here’s My Theory Why Self-Driving Cars Are a Long Way Off: Lawsuits

On Monday, the Financial Times had an article noting that driverless cars may create more traffic jams because more people will take cars if they don’t have to drive themselves.  But, the article also noted that “[p]redictions for driverless cars hitting the road en masse have repeatedly been proved wrong.”  The FT published my letter giving my theory why in Friday’s paper.  Here it is (there is no link because it is behind their paywall):

“Lex talks about how driverless cars may result in more cars on the road as people find car travel even easier if they don’t have to drive themselves.  (‘Driverless cars: jam tomorrow’, March 7)  But the article also notes that, ‘[a]fter a decade of hype and hundreds of millions of dollars of investment, you still can’t buy a self-driving car.’  As the article concludes, ‘[t]he future [of driverless cars] may also be further away that investors hope.’

Voting Rights Bills: Democrats Should Be Careful What They Wish For. They Might Get It.

Joe Biden and Democrats are pushing the Senate to kill the filibuster for their voting rights bills, the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and the Freedom to Vote Act, and allow the bills to be passed by a majority vote; i.e., 50 Democrats plus Vice President Kamala Harris.

But I wonder if they have thought this through.  If they abolish the filibuster and pass their bills setting up national rules for presidential elections and elections to Congress by a majority vote, what is going to stop Republicans from passing their national election rules in 2025 if Republicans win Congress and the presidency in 2024?

Right to Choose; Right to Life. Again.

The big deal in Washington on Wednesday, in addition to Covid, was the Supreme Court argument in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the case involving the Mississippi law generally prohibiting abortion after fifteen weeks.  Among others things, the question in the case is whether Roe v. Wade (1973), along with Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992), should be overturned.

I had several thoughts.  I’m going to just list them, maybe not in the right order, but as I think of them.

1. First, I think Roe v. Wade is a poor decision from a legal reasoning point of view. The Court created the three-trimester test out of thin air. It didn’t really justify it; it just stated it.  Without commenting on whether abortion ought to be legal, Roe v. Wade is just poorly done.

Teaching American History in an Age of Woke-ism*

The Wall Street Journal recently had a review of a new book about Berlin after World War II – and especially the Airlift.¹  It looks fascinating.  I have read other books about the Airlift and have been to Berlin to see the sights of it – more than once.  It is a great story: How we turned a former enemy into an enduring friend, while defending freedom in the heart of Europe.² 

But I wonder how the Airlift is taught in school today.  Well, it probably isn’t.  But I wonder how it would be taught, if it was.  Would it be taught as a triumph of American policy and determination.  As a success story in the early days of the Cold War.  Something for Americans to be proud of.

Why Plessy v. Ferguson – and What Might Have Been

Earlier this month was the 125th anniversary of the decision in Plessy v. Ferguson.  The New York Times had an op-ed by Peter Canellos on the only justice to dissent in Plessy: Justice John Marshall Harlan.¹

In his article, Mr. Canellos said this of the Supreme Court’s decision in Plessy:

“The Supreme Court decision in Plessy v. Ferguson … is duly remembered as one of the great abominations in legal history.  By endorsing the notorious separate-but-equal doctrine, it consigned most African Americans to a state of rank oppression.  In the space of no more than 5,000 words, it violated the plain language of the Constitution, engaged in expansive racist dissembling and defied the outcome of the Civil War.”