Separation of powers
For some time now, conservative members of the U.S. Supreme Court have been the subject of a coordinated campaign to discredit them. Last week, U.S. Representative, Jamie Raskin (D-Md), argued in an opinion piece in the New York Times that the Department of Justice could force Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas to recuse in cases involving the January 6 Capitol riots. Raskin stated that the U.S. Constitution and a federal statute regarding judicial disqualification could be invoked to require the Justices to step aside. He’s flatly wrong. The federal statute cited by Raskin applies only to lower courts. Further, the Constitution makes it clear that the U.S. Supreme Court is the highest judicial body and a separate co-equal branch of the federal government. No legal body can have authority over the Supreme Court. I mean, they don’t call it the Supreme Court for nothing.
More separation of powers
Along similar lines, last week, U.S. Senators Richard Durbin (D-IL) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) requested a meeting with U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice, John Roberts, to discuss Supreme Court ethical standards. The Chief Justice responded with a letter stating, “I must respectfully decline your request for a meeting. As noted in my letter to Chairman Durbin last April, apart from ceremonial events, only on rare occasions in our Nation’s history has a sitting Chief Justice met with legislators, even in a public setting (such as a Committee hearing) with members of both political parties present. Separation of powers concerns and the importance of preserving judicial independence counsel against such appearances.”
Crime
A couple of weeks ago, White House Press Secretary, Karine Jean-Peirre, said at an official White House press briefing that violent crime is at a near fifty-year low. This claim was echoed across mainstream news sources. The claim, though, is patently false. Since 2020, crime, especially violent crime, has been at an all-time high. There is some indication that crime did drop in 2023, according to FBI uniform crime statistics data. However, the crime rate remains high, even accounting for the drop.
The drop in the 2023 data is a function of factors other than an actual reduction in crime. Primarily, large cities have stopped reporting arrest data to the FBI uniform crime database. In 2019, 89% of police agencies, covering 97% of the U.S. population, reported to the database. In 2021, only 63% of police agencies reported data, and only 65% of the U.S. population was captured. In 2023, Chicago, Los Angelas and New York City failed to report data at all. Most violent crime occurs in urban areas. With these largest urban centers not reporting, the violent crime picture is skewed.
So, don’t believe the election year hype. Crime is not at historic lows. Accountability is.
More crime
The Society for the Study of Addiction recently released a new study about marijuana. It shows that marijuana use has skyrocketed. Over the last thirty years, the number of people who report using marijuana in the past month has risen from eight million to forty-two million Americans. More than 40% of marijuana users, roughly seventeen million Americans, report using daily. In addition, marijuana has grown substantially more powerful over the same period. The average potency of marijuana in the 1990s was 5% THC. Now the average is 25% THC. Users in the 90s consumed on average five milligrams of THC per day. Now they consume an average of three-hundred milligrams per day. With this greater use has come increases in emergency room visits for psychotic episodes, more car crashes, and increased risk of cardiovascular disease.
Other
This does not squarely fit with what I usually write about in Judex, but the data is so interesting I wanted to include it anyway. The National Center for Education Statistics recently released a chart showing the growth of administrative staff, principals, teachers and students between the years 2000 and 2019 (apparently data collection and publication lags substantially). Nationally, the number of students in public elementary school has increased by 8% in the last two decades. The number of teachers has grown at the same rate. During the same time, however, the number of administrative staff in public elementary schools has increased by 88%. That administrative staff statistic doesn’t even include the principals, who have increased by 37%. In the immortal words of the Bobs from Office Space, “what would you say it is you do around here?”
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