Crime
The Chief Coroner of British Columbia, Canada, has recently called for supervised fentanyl inhalation sites. These would be places where drug users could go to smoke fentanyl while being supervised by government workers. B.C. Canada already has plenty of supervised injection sites users can go to shoot up. However, most Canadian fentanyl users now prefer to smoke rather than inject the drug. Sixty-five percent of overdose deaths in Canada are from smoking fentanyl. Obviously, the solution to all this dying is to have designated areas where people can smoke fentanyl. The Coroner is experiencing some pushback, however. B.C. residents, already weary of the crime and filth accompanying supervised injection sites, don’t want to see the practice expanded. The other thing is, fentanyl is extraordinarily dangerous, and the vapor created when smoking fentanyl dissipates in the air. Having a bunch of people smoking fentanyl in the same room would kill everyone absent proper ventilation, which is very expensive. Also, the people in the surrounding neighborhoods are nervous about possibly taking a deadly fentanyl cloud in the face on their way to the local deli. If only there were some other way to deal with this problem?
Free speech
I have written previously about how the Biden Administration colluded with social media companies to censor conservative speech. You can read about that here. There is currently a case before the U.S. Supreme Court on the issue. This week, the U.S. House Judiciary Committee released a trove of emails between Biden Administration officials and the Amazon company demonstrating similar conduct. The emails show that the Administration pressured Amazon to censor books on their retail website. Amazon initially resisted stating that messing with book search results would be “too visible.” After a pressure campaign from the White House that included multiple meetings as well as threats to have liberal media outlets run hit pieces against the company, Amazon relented. The company agreed to enable a “Do Not Promote” option on certain books the Administration disagreed with. “Do Not Promote” means that the books would not appear spontaneously to customers as they normally would based on customer preferences, nor would the books be boosted in search results. Initially, censored books were books about the COVID vaccine, but ultimately included other books the Administration did not like. Someday, a great book will be written about this abhorrent conduct. Hopefully, we will be allowed to read it.
Due process and separation of powers
Yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Trump v. Anderson. That’s the case where the Colorado Supreme Court, relying on the Fourteenth Amendment’s insurrection clause, held that Donald Trump could not appear on the state’s presidential ballot. Most of the legal writers on the internet are rooting for Trump to lose, so it is difficult to find objective analysis of the issues. I don’t believe it is a difficult legal issue, however. The Supreme Court will almost certainly find in Trump’s favor, perhaps even 9 -0. They will likely cite section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment which says that the insurrection clause can only be enforced by an act of Congress. Congress has not enacted a specific procedure for disqualification under the Fourteenth Amendment. Congress has created a federal crime of insurrection, which could trigger disqualification if Trump were convicted under that statute, but Trump has not even been charged with insurrection. Usually, the Court would wait until the end of its term in June to release controversial decisions. If this one ends up 9 - 0 we may see it sooner. I have written more extensively about this here and here if you are interested in further details.
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